
ITIiSTATEOFMlSSOORI 




CELEBRATION 



OF THE 



Semi-Centennial Anniversary 



OF ITS FOUNDING 



JULY 4, 1890. 



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UniversityI State of Missouri 






AN ACCOUNT OF THE SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF ITS 
FOUNDING AT COLUMBIA, MISSOURI, JULY 4, 1890, WITH 
ORATION AND SPEECHES, DELIVERED ON THE OCCASION, AND 
A LIST OF THE SURVIVING DONORS, WHO, IN 1839, SUBSCRIBED 
$118,000 TO SECURE ITS LOCATION AND ESTABLISHMENT. 



PRINTED BY ALUMNI AND FRIENDS OF THE INSTITUTION. 



COLUMBIA, MO.: 

HERALD PUBLISHING HOUSE, PRINTERS AND BINDERS , 




^J^oi/MBM7ls 



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J H LATHROP LL D 

FF.ESWEMT OF UI.'r</F PS 1 IT OF MO 




EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 
C. B. Rollins, E. W. Stephens, 

J. G. Babb, T. J. LowRY. 



FINANCE COMMITTEE. 
J. S. DORSEY, A. S. Haines. 



RECEPTION COMMITTEE. 

J. H. Waugh, Wellington Gordon, 

John Hinton, J. H. Rollins, 

M. M. Fisher, Squire Turner, 

Turner McBaine, G. W . Trimble, 

W. F. SwiTZLER, J. A. Adams, 

W. W. Garth, E. M. Bass. 



COMMITTEE ON ENTERTAINMENT. 
W. S. Pratt, N. Todd Gentry, 

J. E. Crumbaugh, L. D. Evans. 



COMMITTEE ON BARBECUE. 
B. M. Anderson, J. H. Guitar, 

Lawrence Bass, W. A. Smith, 

W. R. Wilhite, R. H. Edmonds, 

A. H. Jones, , S. L. Garrard. 



COMMITTEE ON DECORATIONS. 
Mrs. Nannie J. Lenoir, Miss Eugenia Babb, 

Mrs. L. Thompson, Mrs. J. A. Kimbrough. 



HONORARY GRAND MARSHALS. 
Jacob S. Johnston, John Ellis, Nathaniel W. Wilson.* 



CHIEF MARSHAL AND CHIEF AIDS. 
J. C, Gillespy, J. S. Clarkson, R. B. Price. 



A national salute of forty-one guns and Governor's salute of 
seventeen guns were fired by the Battery of the University Cadet 
Battalion: Wm. M. Banks, Capt. Com'd'g Battery; Homer R. 
Mitchell, gunner 1st gun ; E. T. Allen, gunner 2nd gun. 



*Died June 23, 



EVENTS OF THE DAY, 



The Semi-Centennial celebration of the founding of 
the State University of Missouri at Columbia on the 
Fourth of July, 1890, was an occasion of universal 
interest not only in the local aspects, bat to the friends 
of the University and the cause of " Higher Education " 
throughout the State. 

The voluntary donation of "One hundred and 
eighteen thousand dollars," in 1839, by the pioneers of 
a single " ^yilderness County," whose entire annual 
revenue amounted to less than "Five thousand dol- 
lars," to secure the location of a "Public School 
House" devoted to "Higher Education," furnishes an 
unwritten chapter in the history of universities, replete 
with novel and interesting features — disclosing an act 
of "munificence and self-sacrifice," almost without a 
parallel. 

The ceremonies were of the most interesting and 
imposing character. The town and University were 
profusely decorated with bunting and other appropri- 
ate insignia; a grand procession, with "braying 
bands," headed by the Governor, Secretary of State, 
and the surviving donors of 1839, marched from the 
city to the great Auditorium of the University, where 
the enthusiastic crowds were entertained with orations 
and speeches fitting the occasion. 

A magnificent barbecued dinner was served to the 
multitude on the Campus in the afternoon, and at night 
the sky was made luminous and picturesque hj an 
elaborate display of fireworks. 

The friends of " Higher Education" will fi'nd much 
to emulate in the conduct of its pioneer patrons, and 
the general reader not only "food for thought," but 
matter for entertainment, in the ''literary memt.''' 
afforded them. 







OPENING ADDRESS OF ROBERT L. TODD. 

The Heaven-directed law-giver of Israel, in promul- 
gating a code of laws for the government of that race, 
commanded: "And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, 
"and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all 
" the inhabitants thereof ; it shall be a jubilee unto you." 
"A jubilee shall that fiftieth year be unto you." To 
the idea underlying this injunction, the human heart 
responds with alacrity, and joj^ously. Men always and 
in all climes have had their holy days, their historic 
periods, on the return of which they gave vent to their 
feelings of joy or sorrow^ of exultation or humiliation. 



6 SEMI-CEXTENXIAL OF THE 

In our own favored country Ave have been, for a 
decade and a half, celebrating with joy and thanksgiv- 
ing notable events in our national history, beginning 
with Concord and Lexington, running through the 
centennial year, the surrender at Yorktown, the inau- 
guration of our government under the Constitution, and 
the formal installation of that great tribunal, the 
Supreme Court of the United States. The study of our 
early history has had a renewed zeal and more absorb- 
ing interest imparted to it — clearer light has been 
thrown upon it — and we are all more enthusiastic Amer- 
icans, and more intelligent lovers of our country and 
her institutions from the researches provoked by these 
commemorative ceremonies. And to-day the people of 
Missouri have a jubilee. One-half a century ago the 
corner stone of our State University was laid. The men 
who contributed the means to build it, and the noble 
women who shared the sacrifices which that contribu- 
tion made necessary in almost every family, standing 
on the beautiful spot where we assemble to-day, 
watched the proceeding— a novelty to most of them — with 
joy at the completion of their grand struggle, gratitude 
for the success which had crowmed their heroic efforts, 
and glad hope in the future of the institution for which 
they had so labored and denied themselves. It was a 
happy inspiration which moved them thus to connect 
that auspicious day with the most honored day in our 
national history — the natal day of the Republic. They 
were looking with prophetic eyes to the future bless- 
ings of education, civilization, refinement, uxjlifting of 
humanity, which they were sure would fiow to their 
own children and to the children of the State, from the 
great school, whose foundation that glad day witnessed. 



UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 7 

They were a noble body of men and women, those 
pioneers of Boone County. Years before they had pro- 
vided for the education of their sons in Columbia 
College, and of their daughters in Columbia Female 
Academy, both founded and supported by themselves. 
But now, by the absolute gift and payment of nearly 
$120,000, they saw the State University rising in what 
were esteemed its magnificent proportions, in their midst. 
It is no figure of speech to say that, up to that time, no 
such contribution to the cause of higher education had 
been thus made, at one effort, by any people in our 
whole country. And considering the youth of the State, 
the sparseness of our population and their limited 
means — for this donation w^as not made from an accu- 
mulated surplus, but from their small capital — this act 
stands to-day without a parallel. A few of these 
venerable men and women have come down to us from 
a former generation, and we rejoice in their presence 
with us to-day. Two of the marshals of the procession 
of fifty years ago sit before you. General John Ellis 
and Jacob S. Johnston, venerable, honored citizens. A 
draped chair shows where we had hoped to see the 
other marshal. Major N. W. Wilson, whom loving 
hands tenderly laid to his final rest a few days since, 
but whose memory will remain forever a joy to those 
who knew him. The descendants of others are with us. 
We meet to render fitting honors to those noble men 
and women, who made this occasion possible. To other 
speakers is intrusted the grateful duty of recalling the 
incidents of those olden days ; of making our dead 
heroes live and move before us ; of giving just tribute 
to their foresight and heroism ; of welcoming the sur- 
vivors ; of vindicating their wisdom by the result of 



8 • SEMI-CEXTEXXIAL OF THE 

their action ; of showing what the University is, what it 
has done and what it might have done. Of a college, as 
of an individual, it may well be said : 

*' "Tis greatly wise to talk 

With our^past hours. 
And ask them what report 

TheyVe borne to heaven. 
And how they might have borne 

More welcome news." 

The future of the University will not be overlooked 
by these eloquent gentlemen. It will be a joy to listen 
to all this. We hallow this day, but our fathers 
ennobled it before ns and made it illustrious. Let us 
all, curators, faculty, alumni, citizens of Missouri, 
dedicate ourselves here and now to the unfinished 
work which they so bravely began, and resolve that 
the State University shall be lifted up above all 
personal, party or sectarian considerations, and so 
endowed and fostered by the State, so cherished by the 
people, whose school it is, that it shall in all the 
future years be a source of light and gladness and 
blessing ; so strengthened by the confidence and bounty 
of the State, that it shall be able to welcome into its 
ample rooms every child of the Commonwealth yearn- 
ing after the higher life and loftier thoughts w^hich are 
here inculcated; and annually sending forth into all 
the vocations of life groups of cultivated young men, 
and let us not forget to add young women, who shall 
help to lift our people to a higher plane and exert a 
genial, kindly, scholarly, elevating influence in every 
community to which their fortunes may lead them, 
making the State better, richer, greater for their having 
been in it and of it. 




Mm 



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UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOUKI. 



Tlie Chairman in introducing General Guitar said : 

Fellow Citizens: 

I have the pleasure of presenting General Odon Guitar, who is too 
well known to need an introduction to any Missouri audience. A 
graduate of the class of 1846, with a national reputation as a lawyer, 
a gallant soldier of the Union in our late internecine strife, legislator 
and orator, he has consented to discharge the grateful duty of deliver- 
ing the oration on this occasion, and of welcoming our distinguished 
guest, this vast audience, and the survivors of the noble men and 
women of 1839, whom we are glad to see present in such large num- 
bers, and to express to them the appreciation, by the present genera- 
tion, of their efforts, self-denial and generous contributions, which 
have made it possible for us to convene in this capacious and splendid 
auditorium to-dav. 



My Friends : 

I can think of no more fitting and grateful terms in 
which to convey the welcome we extend you to-day, 
than to say it is a "Boone County welcome," prompted 
by the same spirit of liberality, which fifty years ago 
led her pioneers to found this "Temple of Learning," 
and open wide its doors to all the youth of the land. 
The presence of this remnant of that "Heroic Band," 
to greet you on this auspicious day, attests the sincerity 
of that welcome, and the unfaltering devotion of our 
people to the cause of Higher Education. We are, my 
friends, to celebrate the " Fiftieth Anniversary " of the 
laying of the corner stone of our State University. The 
history of that event, and of the circumstances which 
preceded and surrounded it, are little known even to 
our own citizens, and less to the people of the State at 



10 s e:\ii-cextexxial of the 

large. A brief reference thereto will not be inappropri- 
ate, and we trust not without interest. 

AYhen I assert that the voluntary gift of one hun- 
dred and eighteen thousand dollars mlS'^d^ to the State 
of Missouri, with which to found this institution, was 
an act of niunilicence without a jjarallel, in all the 
history of mankind from the dawn of creation to this 
hour, I intend it as no mere laudatory, or boastful 
declaration. History will vindicate its truth. 

This institution owes its origin to the Federal Gov- 
ernment. By Acts of Congress, concluding with the 
Act of January 24, 1827, two townships of land ( 46,080 
acres ) were reserved, and donated to the State of Mis- 
souri, "for the use of a Seminary of Learning"; and 
by Act of March 3, 1831, the State was authorized to 
sell these lands, and invest the iDroceeds "solely to the 
use of such Seminary, and for no other purpose." The 
Legislature of Missouri, in pursuance of such authority, 
by several acts, concluding with that of March 13, 1835, 
directed the sale of said lands, and the investment of 
the i3roceeds to the use of the Seminary Fund. The 
lands were subsequently sold as provided, the sum of 
seventv-eisrht thousand dollars beinor realized therefor 

f O CD 

( about one-half their real value at the time), which was 
invested in the stock of the old bank of the State of 
Missouri ; and which, by the accretion of interest, 
amounted to one hundred thousand dollars in 1839, 
when the General Assembly passed the act authorizing 
the location of the University, on certain conditions in 
the act provided. The conditions were briefly : That 
the site should contain at least 40 acres, in a compact 
form, within two miles of the county seat, of the county 



UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 11 

of Cole, Cooper, Howard, Boone, Callaway or Saline. 
Five commissioners were appointed, viz., John G. 
Bryan, of Washington ; Chauncey Durkee, of Lewis ; 
Archibald .Gamble, of St. Louis ; John S. Phelps, of 
Greene; and Peter H. Burnett, of Clay, "who, after 
"visiting the county seats of the counties named, and 
"receiving bids as required," were to return to the seat 
of government and open the bids, "and the place 
' ' presenting the most advantages to be derived to the 
" University, keeping in view the amount subscribed, 
"and locality, and general advantages, shall be entitled 
^'to its location." 

Now came the ticg of mar. Saline retired from the 
contest before the battle began. The other live counties 
entered the arena with confidence and determination. 
Cooper and Cole relied greatly upon the advantage of 
having their county seats on the Missouri Piver, then 
the only highw^ay of travel and trans^Dortation in the 
State. Besides, Cole having the seat of government 
felt she had superior claims in consequence. The 
other three counties : Boone, Howard and Callaway 
saw their chances of success depended solely upon the 
public spirit and liberality of their citizens. The prize 
offered was the richest in the gift of the State. It was 
not a purse of gold, nor a tiara studded with diamonds ; 
nor a railroad ; nor some great manufacturing industry, 
that would bring population and wealth to their doors, 
and replenish their empty coffers with added eagles. 
It was none of these. It was simply the location of a 
"School House" in their midst, which for all time 
would demand their fostering care, and moral surveil- 
lance, if not material aid. 



12 SEMT-CENTEN^IAL OF THE 

Let US look at the material and financial condition 
of the county at the period of which we are speaking, 
the spring of 1839. The whole country was still under 
the blight of the "Great Financial Crisis" of 1837. 
Values were ruinously low, and there was no market 
for any thing ; the State was not yet 19 years old, hav- 
ing been admitted into the Union August 13, 1821 ; the 
county having been previously organized on November 
16, 1820. The shadow of the retreating red man had 
hardly vanished from the forest glades, and the howl of 
the wolf and the scream of the panther still reverber- 
ated among the hills. The face of the country was 
here and there dotted with timber openings, and the 
cabins of the pioneer settlers. He had brought with 
him only means enough to pay for his land and the few 
crude implements of husbandry to be had, with the 
necessary stock to start his farm. He had no income 
upon which to draw to sujjply the actual wants of a 
growing family. To clear, fence, and reduce to tillage, 
his newly acquired acres, and pay his taxes, involved 
an amount of unremitting labor and self-denial, which 
only men of courage, and the highest type of manhood, 
would have performed or endured. The country had 
no improved highways, no bridges, few school houses 
and churches, and those of the rudest, and most indif- 
ferent character. His own pressing necessities, and the 
wants of the immediate country which surrounded him, 
would seem to have so monopolized his care, and 
thoughts, as to exclude the consideration of any public 
measure, especially, when its fruition was to be deferred 
to the distant future. 



UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 13 

The poi3ulation of Boone County, according to the 
federal census of 1840 (one year after the subscription 
was made ) was 13,361, composed of 5,504 white males ; 
5,025 white females; 3,008 slaves of both sexes; and 
32 free colored persons. There were 2,211 male whites 
over twenty, 571 of whom coald neither read nor write, 
and about 1,400 voters. The subscription of Boone 
County amounted to $117,900, of which every dollar 
was paid. Apportioned equally, among the white 
population over twenty years of age, it would have 
amounted to $53.50 to each one ; apportioned among the 
voters, it would have amounted to $83.57 to each voter. 
There were 913 subscribers to the fund ; the amounts 
subscribed, with six exceptions, varied from five to 
three thousand dollars ; the average was $129.13. The 
entire revenue of Boone County, derived from all 
sources, for the year 1839, was $4,943, which included a 
tax of twenty-five cents per capita, on each white male 
citizen over twenty- one years of age, amounting in the 
aggregate to $318. It will thus be seen, that to pay 
the subscription of $117, 900, by taxation, would have 
required the appropriation, of the entire revenue of the 
county, for more than twenty-four years. 

Suppose my friends, you were called upon to-day, 
to anticipate the revenue of the county, for the next 
twenty-four years, and apply it to the founding of any 
public enterprise, the most beneficent, and useful your 
imagination can picture ; with all your sources of 
wealth, developed industries, and rich incomes ; — what 
w^ould you say to such a proposition ? Instead of giv- 
ing it serious consideration, your response would be : 
*' Are you crazy, or do you take me for a lunatic?" 



14 SEMI-CET^TENNIAL OF THE 

Not a man could be found who would vote to impose 
such a burthen on the coanty, or who would be willing, 
voluntarily, to assume his equitable proportion of such 
a subscription. Yet, these '.'Pioneer Heroes," whom a 
kind Providence has permitted to honor us with their 
presence here to-day, and their brave co-adjutors who 
have gone to their reward, not only gave heed to the 
proposition but, like our fathers of the Revolution, 
left their ploughs standing in the field, closed their 
workshops and stores, and entered upon the struggle, 
resolved to win the prize at whatever cost. These men 
hailed from every section of the Union. The new- 
formed tie of common citizenship had scarcely been 
welded. They differed in politics, and were of differ- 
ent religions ; but these weights, which beset only 
"small men," were left behind. Rugged men, — for the 
most part uncultured, and feeling its need, — they recog- 
nized the great truth, that "Knowledge is Power." 
That knowledge is the only enduring treasure, the only 
treasure, that can elevate its possessor, and give him 
true rank, and position among men. 

Thus impressed and determined, these "Pioneer 
Heroes of Higher Education" in the West entered the 
contest, which by the terms of the act of submission, 
was limited to a period of about ninety days — from 
March 1 to June 1, 1839. It embraced that period 
of the year, most vital to the interests of the farmer, 
the mechanic and merchant. But "seed time and har- 
vest," business and profits, were all lost sight of amid 
the wild enthusiasm, that pervaded the popular mind. 
Eloquent and able leaders were not wanting to head 
the columns, and fire the popular heart. Hon. James 



UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 15 

S. Eollins, Hon. Archibald W. Turner, Hon. John B. 
Gordon, Hon. Sinclair Kirtley, James M. Gordon, 
Warren Woodson, William Cornelius, Dr. A. W. 
Rollins (founder of the Rollins' Aid Fund), and Dr. 
William Jewell ( founder William Jewell College ) and 
Dr. William H. Duncan were among the most promi- 
nent orators and canvassers for the subscription, 
besides being among the most liberal contributors. 
Rollins and J. B. Gordon were members of the lower 
house, and Turner a member of the Senate, that passed 
the location act, the authorship of which is ascribed to 
the former gentleman. 

J^ever was a people more thoroughly aroused. Meet- 
ings were held throughout the county — ^in churches, 
school houses, on "muster-grounds," beneath the 
shades of arching oaks, where gurgling springs fur- 
nished nature's "primal beverage" — which I will not 
assert went always unmixed down the throats of tower- 
ing orator and attentive auditor — but I will say, it 
had not then been discovered, that simple "unadulter- 
ated water" is an unsafe beverage to use in either hot 
or cold weather, nor had the learned "school of doc- 
tors" discovered in alcohol a panacea for all the ills to 
which Hesh is heir. The work went bravely on, waxing 
hotter as it progressed. It was at first thought "tifty 
thousand dollars" would carry the day ; and subscrip- 
tions were predicated on that basis. But later on it 
was ascertained that some of the other counties had 
reached and passed that figure. Like a repulsed col- 
umn in battle, maddened by the show of strength and 
prowess on part of the adversary, they rallied, and, 
with fresh courage and determination, shouted the 



16 SEMI-CE^^TEXXIAL OF THE 

"battle cry" along tlieir closed-up ranks, '^ Once more 
to the breach.'' They liad doubled their subscription, 
and the one hundred thousand dollar pole had been 
reached. Still, in Callaway and Howard (foemen 
worthy of their steel ), the fight went on, and, from 
emissaries sent into their camps, it was learned that it 
was not even safe to halt at the one hundred thousand 
dollar line. Another rally and another charge, and 
$20,000 had been added to the already fabulous sum 
subscribed. And, as I have often heard it said, had it 
not been clearly ascertained before the final submission 
that we were at least $20,000 ahead, another $20,000 
could have been added in a single week. 

They now felt themselves too far ahead to be sur- 
prised by any coiij) cle main of the enemy. Still, they 
slept upon their arms, and when, on the 24th of June, 
1839, after visitiug all the counties, overlooking the 
proposed sites and local surroundings, and receiving 
their sealed proposals, as provided under the law, the 
commissioners returned to the Capital to open the bids, 
and declare the result, Boone County had her true and 
tried representative, Hon. James S. Rollins, within 
''bugle call," to meet any exigency the occasion 
might demand. The bids were opened, when it 
appeared that Cole County had offered 830,000 ; Cooper, 
$40,000; Howard, 894,000; Callaway, 896,000; Boone, 
$117,900. The committee, by unanimous vote, on the 
first ballot, decided in favor of Boone County ; and, as 
fast as the feet of a fleet horse could carry the welcome 
message, it was borne from the Capital to Columbia ; 
from whence it si3read over the county like the ripple 
of a wave before a friendly breeze. The rejoicing was 



UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 17 

universal. People flocked to the county seat for con- 
firmation of the "glad tidings," where, in due time, 
with bonfires, illuminations, fire-works and exultant 
oratory, the great event was duly and enthusiastically 
celebrated by old and young ; especially by the latter, 
as your orator can feelingly attest, inspired less by the 
thought of the "Big School House" our fathers had 
founded, than by the stirring music and flaming tar 
barrels. 

How delightful it would be, my friends, to dwell 
here upon the " thousand and one " personal incidents, 
which characterized that most remarkable contest. 
How grateful to refer individually to those noble and 
self -sacriflcing men ! It is due to them that their names 
shall be inscribed upon a suitable tablet of marble or 
brass, to be permanently fixed and preserved within the 
walls of this temple of learning ; that the generations 
who are to come after them shall know of their virtues 
and sacrifices, and be inspired to emulate their noble 
deeds. To undertake to single out instances of excep- 
tional liberality would be an endless and invidious 
task, as the common ambition was to give ' ' my full 
share." Many gave twenty per cent, of all they had. 
Some gave what they had not, but trusted to fortune to 
acquire it before the day of payment arrived. Charlie 
Burns, a Scottish well-digger, who, by reason of his 
pleasant face, and convivial temperament, I have always 
associated with his kinsman, the immortal bard, gave 
$5 ; which was conceded on all hands to be a larger 
sum than he ever had in his possession at any one time, 
until he paid his subscription. There are men sitting 
before me now in that group of gray-haired veterans, 



18 SEMI-CENTEKNIAL OF THE 

who gave one-third what they were worth ; some of 
them journeymen mechanics, working by the day or 
the piece, to earn a livelihood. 

There were three subscriptions, of three thousand 
dollars each. One of them was made by our honored 
and respected fellow-townsman, Jefferson Garth, who 
still survives, enjoying the esteem, and good will, of all 
who know him, who would be with us to-day, but for 
the infirmities of extreme age. The second was made 
by Hon. Eli E. Bass, deceased, oue of Boone County's 
earliest, most distinguished and public spirited citizens, 
a member of the first Board of Curators, of the original 
building committee, and always the fast friend of the 
University. The third three thousand dollar subscrip- 
tion was made by Edward Camplin, deceased, a self- 
made farmer, of great enterprise and liberality who 
could neither read, nor write ; and Avho in explanation 
of his motive said, "I make this gift that my descend- 
"ants may enjoy advantages I never possessed, and the 
"want of which I have felt all my life." This man 
was a native of the "grand old county of Madison," 
in the State of Kentucky, which gave also to the world 
His Excellency our Governor, and your orator ; and had 
she done nothing more would have achieved thereby 
imperishable renown, and earned the title of "mother 
of statesmen," if not of States, — at least in the mod- 
est estimation, of His Excellency and myself. But she 
has done more. She well nigh poiDulated Boone and 
Howard Counties, and her sons and their descendants 
contributed a very large percentage of the subscription 
in question, and were among its ablest, and most zeal- 
ous advocates. I will be pardoned for this allusion to 



TJNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 19 

natives of "Old Madison," prompted by the presence 
of our distinguished Governor, whose friendly inter- 
est and unflagging zeal in behalf of the University 
have been so conspicuous and valuable, in promoting 
friendly, and fostering legislation under his administra- 
tion. His manly, public si3irited and liberal course, in 
promoting the cause of education, must challenge the 
approval, and admiration of every intelligent citizen of 
our great State, regardless of i^olitical affiliations. 

To pick up the broken thread of my story : The 
first Board of Curators was composed of Eli E. Bass 
and Thos. M. Allen, of Boone ; I. 0. Hockaday and 
John A. Henderson, of Callaway ; Dr. John J. Lowry 
and Rowland Hughes, of Howard ; Thos. A. Smith and 
M. M. Marmaduke, of Saline ; Greorge C. Hart and 
Gabriel Tiitt, of Cooper ; William Scott and R. M. 
AVells, of Cole ; Thomas Allen, of Ray ; David Weir, of 
St. Clair, and Joseph Spaulding, of St. Louis. These 
were notable men ; all of whom have figured with dis- 
tinction, in the i)ublic affairs of the State. On October 
28, 1839, the Board by a unanimous vote located the 
University upon the site occupied by the original main 
building ; and on the thirty-first of March, 1840, the 
contract for its erection was let to Clement, Kennon and 
others of Hlinois, who pushed the work with such 
vigor, that on the 4th of July, 1840, they were ready 
for the ceremony, whose semi-centennial anniversary, 
we are here to- day to celebrate. 

My friends, fifty years have passed by, since that 
eventful day, and I now proceed to call the roll of 
honor, to see how many of that heroic band are here to 
answer to their names. We will omit the call of those 



20 SEMI-CENTENlSriAL OF THE 

whose names have been transferred to the "pension 
rolls" of that brighter and better land, where deeds, 
not professions, establish the soldier's claim. Knowing, 
as I do, the embarrassing dilemma, in which I am about 
to place some of my "gallant friends," I will make an 
exception in favor of those who are "widowers." They 
will not be required to give their ages, when they 
answer to their names. Men made of "such stuff" as 
these will never lose their "devotion and admiration" 
for "fair and lovely women," though they live to be a 
thousand years old. This conclusion is amply con- 
firmed, in the fact, that several of the "stalwart heroes," 
before me, are now just in the midst of their "honey- 
moons," and others yearning to embark on that 
"blissful sea." 

[After the applause subsided the speaker proceeded to call the 
roll, when the following answered to their names, giving their ages, 
except M. P. Leintz, who answered, "Present — widower."] : 

[ Matthew Barnes, 74 ; James L. Boyce, 75 ; Henry 
Crumbaugh, 76 ; Sanford Conley, 76 ; Joseph Estes, 70 ; 
Gen. John Ellis, 80 ; Joel Hawkins, 73 ; Edward D. 
Henry, 77 ; Jacob S. Johnston, 75 ; James E. Johnston, 
87 ; Montgomery P. Leintz, — ; Rollin Lyman, 77 ; 
William F. Pierson, 84 ; John A. Reed, 84 ; John W. 
Ridgeway, 77; James Rogers, 71; A. N. Turner, 82; 
William H. Wade, 78 ; A. B. AYeldon, 80; R. Porter 
Waters, 73 ; Reuben J. Wade, 74. ] I have thus called 
the roll of the survivors of that "heroic band of men," 
who made the theme, and events of this day possible. 
The weight of accumulated years, and the infirmities 
incident thereto, have prevented some of them from being 
present with us to-day. Among them. Dr. Wm. H. Dun- 
can, our honored townsman, who was the second treasurer 



UNIVEESITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 21 

of the University, holding the position for fourteen 
years, and also, at one time, a member of the Board of 
Curators. 

There is one vacant chair, my friends, about which 
hangs the " significant drapery of death." That chair 
was to have been occupied on this occasion by our dis- 
tinguished and lamented fellow- citizen, Nathaniel W. 
Wilson, who was the Grand Marshal on the occasion 
of the dedication of the University edifice, July 4, 1843. 
By an inscrutable decree of Him " who knoweth best, 
and doeth all things well," we are denied the pleasure 
of his presence with us to-day, and he is debarred the 
felicity of taking part in the reunion of his old com- 
rades. How grateful the reflection, my friends, that 
erelong you too will wrap your mantles about you, 
and lie down to pleasant dreams, and that, awakening 
from that dreamless slumber, you shall hear the kindly 
voice of your old marshal, as he commands: ''Fall 
" into line, comrades ; right face ; column right march." 
All the above-named gentlemen are residents of Boone 
County, except Mr. Leintz, who resides in Howard 
County. 

Those known to be living, and not present to-day, 
are as follows: John Brushwood, Hybert L. Brink, 
William Christian, Dr. William H. Duncan, Matthew 
Fountain, Jefferson Garth, Sylvester F. Goslin, Joel 
Hawkins, Samuel Henry, Matthew O. Keene, John 
Melvin, Samuel Nichols, Noah Robnett, G. B. Sap- 
pington, M. Turner, Thomas Turner, Thomas Toalson, 
W. W. Tucker, Wm. Winn, Thos. M. Winn, Charles 
H. Winn, Edward J. Young ; all the above are residents 
of Boone County. The following are residents of the 



22 SEMI-CENTEXiN^IAL OF THE 

places named, viz., Lewis H. Collins, Laclede, Mo.; 
Wm. H. Fawcett, Portland, Oregon ; William T. Hick- 
man, Sheldon, Mo.; Robert J. Martin, Nevada, Mo.; 
James L. Nelson and John T. Nelson, Gallatin, Mo.; 
Joseph Northcutt, Paris, Ky. ; Moses U. Payne, Ham- 
burg, Iowa ; N. C. Peebles, Los Angeles, Gala. 

The laying of the corner stone of the University of 
Missouri was not a local or State event. Indeed, it was 
more than a national event. The Empire of Knowledge 
is as broad as the earth ; the spires of her temples rise 
heavenward in every civilized land, and her devotees 
are confined to no race or tribe of men. The first corner 
stone of a university laid west of the Mississippi was 
that laid on July 4, 1840, and the first laid by human 
hands whereon was erected a university edifice, paid for 
by the voluntary contribution of the people of a single 
county. 

Here, and now, and forever, I want to put at rest a 
proposition which has at convenient intervals in the 
history of the University, when it seemed to answer the 
purposes of the enemies of "Higher Education" in 
the State, and of croakers and unfriendly critics, been 
agitated and forced upon the consideration of the pub- 
lic. Is there any power, State or Federal, by which the 
University can be removed from its present location, or 
by which the Agricultural and Mechanical College can 
be divorced and separated from it ? I answer, none on 
earth. Neither the Federal Government, the State 
Government, nor both combined, can ever remove these 
institutions from their present foundations, or cut the 
knot by which they are legally, and indissolubly, bound 
together. 



UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 23 

When our fathers put that corner stone in place, 
they founded the State University of Missouri — "other 
foundations, it hath none" — and never can have. 
When, by the Act of the General Assembly of the State 
of Missouri, of February 24, 1870, the "College of 
Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts ' ' was located at 
Columbia, as a department of the University, in con- 
sideration of $90,000 paid by Boone County and Colum- 
bia, the marriage bond between the institutions was 
made complete and irrevocable. The object and intent 
of the Federal Grant of July, 1862, had been carried 
out, and the title to the land therein granted abso- 
lutely and unconditionally vested in the "Curators of 
the University of the State of Missouri," to be disposed 
of, and the proceeds applied, in manner as in said Act 
is provided. The court of last resort in this land, by 
adjudications, sanctified with age and of universal 
acceptance and authority, has set its seal upon the 
legal eifect and binding force of the statutes referred 
to. Warring factions may disturb the public tranquil- 
lity, and revolution shake the pillars of state, but as 
long as the state and national governments shall remain 
intact, these foundations will stand unshaken and 
unimpaired. 

But to resume : I shall hardly be credited, when I 
say to this audience, that during all the early struggles 
of the institution, when its very existence seemed to be 
imperiled, without means to pay its President and pro- 
fessors, at times involved in debt, with its warrants 
depreciated to sixty cents on the dollar, the State per- 
sistently refused to grant it a dollar of aid. Never 
until March 11, 1867, did the State appropriate a single 



24 SEMI-CENTETsTNIAL OF THE 

dollar to the supj)ort of the University. It had then 
been in existence twenty-seven years. How it preserved 
its existence, amid all the trying vicissitudes and dis- 
couragements through w^hich it jjassed during those 
weary years, is an unsolved mystery to me— familiar as 
I am with all its history. In all those years her doors 
were never closed, save for a brief period during our 
Civil Struggle, when ' ' grim visaged war shook her 
gory locks" in her deserted halls. But the institu- 
tion not only survived through this long period of 
neglect and destitution, but it made commendable prog- 
ress, and gave to the world scores of strong cultured 
men, of whose usefulness and success in life, she has no 
reason to be ashamed. 

A new era dawned upon the institution in 1867, 
when the General Assembly voted $10,000 to rebuild 
the President's House, destroyed by fire ; and one and 
three-fourths per cent, of the State revenue (after 
deducting twenty-five per cent, devoted to Common 
Schools), for its annual support. Next followed, in 
1870, the location of the College of " Agriculture and 
the Mechanic Arts" with its federal endowment, and 
the munificent gift of $90,000 by Columbia and Boone 
County. Following in order, in March, 1872, came the 
establishment of the "School of Mines" at Rolla, as a 
department of the University, with an appropriation to 
erect the Scientific Building, and to pay all the out- 
standing debts of the University, and adding $100,000 
to its iDermanent endowment fund. 

The State had at last found out that she had a 
University at Columbia, and that it merited and 
demanded her support. Following out this conviction. 



UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 25 

the General Assembly continued its biennial appropria- 
tions for its support, and in 1883, realizing the great 
want that had hampered its usefulness for years, the 
General Assembly appropriated $100,000 to enlarge and 
improve the main edifice. This has been supplemented 
by other liberal appropriations since, to build club 
houses, and furnish and equip the University with 
apparatus, and all modern apx)liances necessary to the 
successful impartation of knowledge, in every branch 
of literature and science. 

So, at last, my friends, after a struggle of half a 
century, we are permitted to enjoy the long-deferred 
pleasure of seeing this idol of our hearts, and mother 
of our love, grafted into the organic structure of the 
State, and enthroned in the affections of the people. 
At last her temple is finished ; and her altars are set 
with willing priests to minister before them. But, my 
friends, where are the worshipers ? They are not here, 
in such numbers as to justify public expectation and 
meet the earnest wishes of the Curators, learned faculty 
and ardent friends of the institution. Why are they 
not here? This question has been pressed upon my 
consideration, by friends inside and outside of the 
institution, and I should feel myself a recreant, and 
undutiful SOD, were I to hesitate to give my candid and 
carefully considered answer to this question. In the 
language of the patriot philosopher, "I know of no 
way of judging the future, but by the past"; and 
taking the past history of the University, from its 
founding to the present hour, are there to be found any 
facts, which throw light upon the question propounded, 
or furnish a key to its solution ? Let us, with candor 



26 se:mi-cextexxial of the 

and fairness, disrobing ourselves of all i^redilections 
and prejudice, scan the oracles of the past : 

On October 29, 1840, John H. Lathrop, of Hamilton 
College, New York, was uQanimousl}^ elected President 
of the University, and with William AY. Hudson, 
George Hadley and Wm. Yan Doren as professors, its 
organized work began in the old Columbia College 
Building, on April 14, 1841, where it continued under 
the same organization until the completion of the new 
edifice ; when, the faculty having been reorganized, 
the halls of the University proper were thrown open to 
the youth of the land. Its only income was the interest 
derived from the Seminary Fund, invested in the stock 
of the State Bank of Missouri, with some 81,800 accru- 
ing annually from tuition fees. Six or eight thousand 
dollars covered its entire annual resources except when 
the bank failed to iDay dividends, which sometimes 
occurred, leaving it substantially without financial sup- 
port. The salary of the President, originally fixed at 
83,000, was afterwards reduced by the board to 82,500, 
and, later, to 81,250, by the voluntary surrender of 
one-half by President Lathrop. The j)rofessors' salaries 
were from six to eight hundred dollars per annum, 
dependent, in part, upon the amount of tuition fees. 
Notwithstanding this niggardly and inadequate sup- 
port, under the leadership of its noble and self-sacri- 
ficing President, the institution held bravely on its 
course, forging its way amid the icebergs and darkness 
of a polar sentiment which had not yet felt the genial 
warmth of the rising Sun of Knowledge, or caught the 
reflected light of the open sea beyond. On the twenty- 
first of September, 1846, President Lathrop was unani- 



UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 27 

mously re-elected for a second term of four years. Up 
to this time the utmost harmony had prevailed in the 
councils of the institution. 

But it had now become generally known that Presi- 
dent Lathrop was a Whig, notwithstanding his digni- 
fied reticence and entire freedom from any participation 
in politics. In his original lectures on ''constitutional 
and international law," the most learned, profound 
and perspicuous to which your orator has ever listened, 
he treated the questions upon which the great political 
parties of the country differed with such liberality and 
fairness as to leave the student in doubt as to where he 
stood ; at the same time presenting the reasons on both 
sides with such clearness and force that his hearers 
could not fail to reach a conclusion one way or the 
other, most generally, however, in accordance with the 
opinions of their fathers. Partisan and sectarian jeal- 
ousy, once aroused, can never be placated or lulled 
back to repose. The very effort adds to its virulence. 
This Great Captain of advanced thought and higher 
education saw the on-coming cloud ; but still stood 
courageously at his post, putting aside all considerations 
of self, looking alone to the safety of the vessel and 
passengers conlided to his hands ; determined she 
should never founder while his eye scanned the dark- 
ening sea and his hand was upon her helm. By a 
unanimous vote of the Curators, on January 29, 1849, 
his salary was increased and his term of office extended 
to September 21, 1854. Thus he became master of the 
situation. A cringe of the knee would placate enemies 
and make new friends. But with that conscious dignity 
and exalted independence ''all his own" he declined a 



28 semi-centen:n^ial of the 

re-election, feeling and knowing that a want of harmony 
and sympathy between himself, and those in authority, 
must cripple his efforts and impair the growth and 
usefulness of the institution. So, in the language of 
the historian of the University,^ "Worried by the 
"houndings of politicians ^ ^ ^ and offered the 
"Chancellorship of Wisconsin University, he resigned 
"his trust September 22, 1849." The conclusion quoted 
is from the pen of one "on the inside" who has given 
the subject much thought and investigation, and who, 
not being in political accord with Chancellor Lathrop, 
speaks certainly without bias, and in strict consonance 
with the deductions of historic truth. 

Thus terminated the administration of John H. 
Lathrop, the first President of the University. And, 
on November 9, 1849, Rev. James Shannon, of Bacon 
College, Kentucky, was elected to succeed him. He 
was a man of culture and executive ability, high moral 
character, great personal magnetism and untiring 
energy. He was "a sectarian in religion," and a 
"political partisan," though never engaged actively in 
politics. No fault can be found with the executive 
administration of the University under him ( aside from 
the sectarian and political influence ^ exerted). It can- 
not be questioned that there was a marked increase in 
the attendance under his administration. Whilst his 
partisan and sectarian zeal repelled many, it attracted 
others. But, notwithstanding the real or apparent 
success of his administration, his pronounced accord 
with the dominant party in the State during a period of 
the greatest political excitement in the history of the 

* T. J. Lowiy. 



UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 29 

country (1854-56), when the " slavery question " and 
the future status of Kansas agitated not only Missouri 
but the whole country, from its center to its circumfer- 
ence ; and notwithstanding he was regarded as one of 
the ablest (if not the ablest) advocates of "slavery 
extension" in the State, bold, aggressive and magnetic, 
and in full sympathy with four-fifths of the people of 
all parties on that question ; and the acknowledged 
leader of one of the largest and most influential relig- 
ious sects in the West, he went down, went down in the 
house of his friends — his office being made vacant by 
an Act of the General Assembly passed on December 4, 
1855. Being a member of the House at the time your 
orator participated in the discussions and legislation 
which resulted in this "tragic deposition" of a man, 
whose greatest offense seemed to be that he had the 
courage of his convictions, and believed, as a minister 
of the gospel, his duty to his Divine Master was para- 
mount to any obligation he owed the State. The his- 
torian of the University, who, at least, is influenced 
by no "political antagonism," says of this event: 
" President Shannon's religious and political magnetism 
"drew an increased number of students to the Uni- 
' ' versity . His continued preaching the ' unsearchable 
"riches of Christ' and participating actively in polit- 
" ical discussions so filled the legislative halls of 
''the State with the combined 'howls' of fanatical 
"sectarians and 'exasperated politicians' that the 
' ' General Assembly, by an Act of December 4, 1855, 
" declared vacant on July 4, 1856, all of the offices held 
"by the President, professors and tutors of the Uni- 
" versity." We do not pause here to inquire how this 



30 SEMI-CEXTEXXIAL OF THE 

seeming unnatural and impossible result was brought 
about. We defer our argument and deductions until 
tlie facts are all in. 

The retirement of President Shannon was followed 
by the election of Prof. W. W. Hudson to the pres- 
idency on July 4, 1856. Prof. Hudson had been con- 
nected with the University from its original organization. 
He was an old college-mate of President Lathrop at Yale, 
and was originally elected to the Chair of Mathematics, 
Xatural Philosophy and Astronomy, at his suggestion. 
He was a man of extensive culture, elevated character 
and fine executive ability ; dignified and affable, without 
self-assertion or arrogance, he won the good will and 
confidence of all with whom he came in contact. Under 
his administration the institution prospered, and its 
average attendance increased 30 per cent, over that 
attained under his predecessor. President Hudson was 
neither '"a iiartisan " or '"a sectarian." which, connected 
with the increased prosperity of the institution under 
his rule, furnishes a circumstance of most potential sig- 
nificance. Our historian tells us: " Under his pres- 
''idency the croakings of *' i^oliticians* and * sectarians ' 
" were no longer heard in the land. — the growth of the 
''University was vigorous, healthy, continuous, uj-) to 
''President Hudson's death, June 14, 1859.** 

After a brief interregnum during which Prof. G. H. 
Matthews presided as Chairman of the Faculty, on July 
2, 1860. B. B. Minor, Esq., of Richmond, Va., was 
elected to the presidency, and was installed in October 
following, when he assumed control. President Minor 
proved to be a gentleman of culture and refinement. 
Dignified and urbane, he made a good imiDression, and 



UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 31 

no doubt under favorable auspices and in another atmos- 
phere, might have presided with success. But his rule 
was short and disastrous. The gathering clouds of civil 
strife already hung ominously about the horizon. The 
public mind was directed to the on-coming storm. The 
attendance gradually decreased, and on the breaking 
out of active hostilities in the spring of 1861 the halls of 
the University were^well nigh deserted. In March, 1862, 
there having been a change in the Board of Curators, 
and the views and sympathies of President Minor hav- 
ing become understood, a resolution was passed by the 
Board declaring the offices of the President and profes- 
sors vacant. Thus ended the short and uneventful 
administration of President Minor. It furnishes us 
with no significant data that can fairly be used in the 
discussion in hand. The extraordinary circumstances 
attending it take it out of the line of precedent ; still, 
were I disposed to surmise results, had there been no 
war in the land, with his avowed sentiments known, 
there would have been war in the University. During 
the continuance of the war the continuity of the college 
life of the University was preserved through the minis- 
trations of Professors Lathrop, Norwood and Matthews, 
with the aid of tutors Karnes and Ess. The attendance 
was of course small, its work interrupted and unsatis- 
factory. 

On the twenty-seventh of June, 1865, the Civil War 
having ended, the University was reorganized by the 
election of John H. Lathrop, President, with Matthews, 
Norwood and Ficklin as professors. Dr. Lathrop had 
returned to the University in 1860, in the capacity of 
"Professor of English Language and Literature," and 



82 SEMI-CEI^TENIS^IAL OF THE 

held this position at the time of his re-election as Pres- 
ident. This event was regarded by the admirers of Dr. 
Lathrop as a " providential dispensation," and inspired 
them with pride and hope. The friends of the Univer- 
sity, without regard to party or sect, seemed to have 
forgotten their old jealousies, and, proliting by the 
experiences of the past, determined to rally as one man 
to the support of their- first love. The attendance 
increased rapidly from the moment of reorganization. 
Everything moved with system and harmony — the hand 
of her old captain was on her helm, and a radiant sky 
and friendly wind seemed to be bearing her out into a 
calm and broader sea. Our hopes are born, but to 
perish. Suddenly the brave captain halts upon the 
deck. No tremor shakes his limbs. No craven fear 
pales his cheek. A life devoted to the culture and 
elevation of his kind, conscious of the rectitude of all 
his purposes, feeling that his fair name and well-earned 
fame would remain safely treasured in the hearts of 
those he labored to serve ; and whom he loved as only a 
father can love his sons, — with a serene smile, and that 
self-abnegation which characterized every act of his life, 
he would only say with his parting breath, ' ' I have 
tried to do my duty." How grateful the thought, real 
or unreal, that his beneficent spirit will, for all time, 
brood over these scenes of his labors, disappointments 
and triumphs. 

On August 29, 1866, Prof. Daniel Read, of the 
Wisconsin University, was unanimously elected Presi- 
dent for four years. He was no ordinary man, — of broad 
and varied scholarship, sanguine and aggressive temper- 
ament, with a life experience as a professional educator, 



UN^IYERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 33 

and devoted to his calling, he brought to the adminis- 
tration of the trust confided to him every qualification 
that seemed necessary to insure success. Even before 
he had signified his final acceptance of the position 
which had been tendered him, his influence was felt, and 
it was only upon the condition of favorable legislation, 
providing for the rebuilding of the President's House 
and setting apart a portion of the public revenue for 
the support of the University that he would consent to 
consider, or accept the presidency. The legislation 
demanded was had, and his acceptance made final. 
Following close upon the heels of these first appropria- 
tions, came the location of the "Agricultural College," 
at Columbia, as a department of the University, bring- 
ing its splendid endowment of 330,000 acres of land 
donated by Congress, together with the $90,000 gift in 
money and lands, made by Columbia and Boone County. 
These changed conditions rendered a complete reorgan- 
ization of the University necessary, which was accom- 
plished in 1870, by the creation of a distinct faculty, 
for the "Agricultural and Mechanical College," with a 
special course adapted to its requirements. Other 
Departments, or Schools, were added to the University 
proper— the Military, the Normal, Law, Medical, and 
that of Analytical and Applied Chemistry. In 1871, the 
School of ' ' Mines and Metallurgy ' ' was established at 
Rolla with an independent faculty, headed by the 
President of the University. 

Now, for the first time in its history, Missouri was 
able to say to her people, we have a University, in the 
broad and comprehensive sense of the term. They 
seemed to recognize the fact, as was evidenced by the 



34 SEMT-CEXTE^'^'IAL OF THE 

interest manifested, and the increased number of 
students that flocked to her halls, then too small to 
accommodate with comfort all that came. Each pass- 
ing year seemed to demonstrate more fully the propriety 
and wisdom of President Read's selection. His praises 
were upon every tongue, and the press of the State was 
lavish in its encomiums. His dignified and manly 
bearing, his a]3proachable and afl'able disposition, and 
the interest and zeal manifested by him, in the progress 
and well-doing of the students, secured him a warm 
place in their affections and esteem. President Read 
was re-elected to a second term, the same tide of pros- 
perity followed him through that, that had characterized 
his administration during the first. In the mean time 
the political conditions in Missouri had changed. With 
Ms sharp discernment, and keen apprehension of the 
motives of men, he saw that whilst there was no 
antagonism to him professionally, or XDersonally, there 
was evidently a sentiment of "political jealousy'' taking 
root in the minds of some, who differed with him 
politically, and he determined as all great and unselfish 
men will do under such conditions, that the interest, 
progress and success of the University, for which he 
had done so much, should not be jeoparded, by reason 
of any opposition to him politically, or otherwise. 
Besides, his advanced age admonished him, that the 
time was near at hand, when in the course of nature he 
must retire from that useful, and self-sacrificing field of 
labor, in which, for nearly fifty years, he had with so 
much assiduity, and such distinguished success engaged. 
So, in i)ursuance of his predetermination expressed to 
the Board of Curators a vear before, on Julv 4, 1876, he 



UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 35 

surrendered the trust which he had administered with 
such signal ability and success, that no man in all the 
land could be found, that was not willing to say, " Well 
done, thou good and faithful servant." 

On October 27, 1875, Dr. S. S. Laws, of New York 
City, was unanimously elected President for four years 
from July 4, 1876. He was no stranger to the people 
of Missouri. He came to this State before the war, a 
Presbyterian minister, locating in St. Louis, becoming 
afterwards President of Westminster College, a secta- 
rian school, located at Fulton, Missouri, where his 
administration was prosperous, and highly satisfactory. 
He was exiled from the State at the beginning, of the 
war, on account of his Southern proclivities, going to 
Europe, where he devoted himself to study and travel ; 
returning to New York before the close of the war, he 
became Vice-President of the Gold Exchange, which 
position he administered with singular success. I do 
not hesitate to adopt the language of his eulogist in the 
historical sketch of the University, when he says ; 
" Samuel Spahr Laws brought to the office of President 
' ' of the University the ripe and varied scholarship of 
"an extraordinary versatile and accomplished mind." 
Nor do I hesitate to say, that he is a man of great force 
of character, untiring industry and unflagging zeal. 
Besides possessing these distinguished qualities and 
qualifications, he entered upon his administration under 
the most favorable and promising auspices. His selec- 
tion was favored not only by those who w^ere in sympa- 
thy with him politically and religiously, but by the 
friends of the University who differed with him. Every- 
body felt that it was necessary to choose a man who 



36 SEMI-CE]SrTE^^XIAL OF THE 

was in perfect accord with the dominant party in the 
State, and in sympathy with the "dominant faction" 
in that party. No further progress could be made, 
unless we could secure the favor and support of a 
majority of our Legislature. To do this, Eepublican 
friends of the University were willing to forego all 
party predilections and to unite cordially in the selec- 
tion of Dr. Laws. I speak from personal knowledge of 
the situation. He came into power with the sympathy 
and supiDort of all parties and sects friendly to the 
University. His early efforts, ably seconded by the dis- 
tinguished Chairman of the Board of Curators, were emi- 
nently successful in shaping public opinion, and securing 
friendly legislation. Hon. James S. Rollins, Chairman 
of the Board, favored and voted for the election of Dr. 
Laws, though not in iDolitical symjDathy with him. 
Still, in all efforts to promote the progress and well- 
being of the University, they were in perfect accord ; 
and Rollins and his friends were always able to rally 
"the contingent" necessary to supx')lement a "short 
majority" on the dominant side. Everything worked 
successfully and harmoniously throughout Dr. Laws' 
first term ; and material progress had been made in 
every direction. He held over a second term without 
opposition. In 1882, there being some intimation of an 
intention on the part of Dr. Laws to resign, the Board 
of Curators made an investigation of the condition and 
com^Darative progress of the institution, passing the 
following resolutions : '" JResolmdl, That, in the opin- 
"ion of the Board, the continued prosperity of the 
"State University demands the continued services of 
"Dr. Laws as its President, and we earnestly and 



UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 37 

"unanimously request that he will not sever his connec- 
"tionwithit; 2, That we should deem his resigna- 
"tion a calamity to the institution and to the best 
"interests of the State." The University was now on 
the eve of another great and important struggle. To 
improve and enlarge the main edifice was a want which 
had been recognized and felt for years. Its friends had 
been active and diligent in educating the public mind 
up to this point. With all her forces concentrated and 
united, on March 23, 1883, the battle was fought and the 
victory won— the Legislature appropriated $100,000 to 
enlarge and improve the main edifice, which was dedi- 
cated with imposing ceremonies on June 4, 1885. 

To. have witnessed the proceedings on that day, 
and heard the encomiums pronounced, one would have 
supposed, that Dr. Laws' term of oflSce was during life, 
or his own pleasure. " Such is the irony of fate." 
President Laws without opposition held over for a 
third term in 1886. The Legislature continued its lib- 
eral support to the University, and material progress 
and development were made in all its departments. To 
the casual observer, looking only at the surface of 
things, all seemed harmonious and peaceful. Below 
the surface however, under-currents were insidiously, 
but surely, wearing away the foundations on which the 
tenure of his ofiicial life rested. His panegyrist tells 
us : "He favored no political, or ecclesiastical faith in 
"choosing his faculties ; no nepotism, or consideration 
"of personal regard, moved him, but only scholarly 
"qualifications as he saw them." His history and 
antecedents did not justify such a course,, in the esti- 
mation of his "partisan" and "sectarian" friends. 



38 SEMI-CEN^TENNIAL OF THE 

That he should go outside of his own church, to hunt 
up, not only prominent members, but "prominent 
ministers" of other churches, to fill places in his 
faculty, was incomprehensible to them on any other 
theory than that of "apostasy from the faith." So, 
when he went to New York, to find a foreigner and a 
Republican, to fill one of the most important and 
responsible chairs in the University ; and elsewhere to 
find other Republicans of northern birth, to fill other 
positions, — and then to the granite hills of New Hamp- 
shire, to find a Dean for the "Agricultural College," 
the cup of "partisan disappointment" was filled to the 
brim. And no argument, predicated upon the capacity 
and fitness of these men for the places they were called 
to occupy, would be heard, much less heeded. In 
another partisan of different faith and politics, the 
course pursued by Dr. Laws would not only have been 
esteemed commendable, but most magnanimous and 
praiseworthy. Had the same liberal course been pur- 
sued by a "non-sectarian" and "non-partisan" Presi- 
dent, men of all parties, and all sects, .would have said 
"Well done. He is just and fair to all. None have a 
"right to complain." But what has the distinguished 
President to fear at the hands of a few scattered "mal- 
content partisans?" Strong in the conviction that he 
has pursued an independent and liberal course that 
he had united in his Cabinet representatives of all 
parties, and sects ; that the leading organs of the two 
great political parties were friendly ; and that the 
Republican Dean of the Agricultural College, whose 
fortunes were allied to his, would command the sup- 
port, not only of his party friends, but of the leading 



UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 39 

representatives of the great farming interests regardless 
of party affiliations, — he langhed to scorn the threat- 
ened assaults of his enemies. The ides of March drew 
near. Auguries of ill-omen fill the air, but : 

" Cgesar shall forth : the things that threatened me 
Xe^er lookM but on my back ; when they shall see 
The face of Csesar, they are vanished.'' 

And forth he went to the Capital, where, in the 
Forum, surrounded by "IN'oble Senators and repre- 
sentatives," he fell covered with "ghastly wounds," 
and with the great C^sar might fitly have exclaimed, 
^''Ettu^ Brute.''^ Cassius, and Casca, and Decius, and 
Metellus, and Trebonius, and Cinna, were also there, 
but no Mark Antony to do him reverence ; or, holding 
up his bloody mantle, show in which place "ran 
Cassius' dagger through," and "the rent the envious 
Casca made." Thus terminated the administration of 
Caesar in Rome, nineteen hundred years ago. Thus 
terminated the administration of James Shannon, in 
the Forum of the Missouri Legislature in 1855. Thus 
terminated the administration of Dr. Samuel Spahr 
Laws, in the same Forum in 1889. History repeats 
itself ; and will continue to do so, to the ead of time. 
The claims of "partisan" and "sectarian loyalty" 
must be repaid with "partisan" and "sectarian" 

service. 

'^ Octavius, I have seen more days than you : 
And though we lay these honors on this man^ 
To ease ourselves of divers slandrous loads, 
He shall but bear them, as the ass bears gold, 
To groan and sweat under the business, 
Either led or driven, as we point the way ; 
And having brought our treasure where we will. 
Then take we down his load and turn him off. 
Like to the empty ass, to shake his ears. 
And graze on Commons.'' 



40 SEMI-CE]SrTEN]S^IAL OF THE 

There is but one safe policy to be followed in select- 
ing an administrative head for the University and that 
is an "independent one." I do not mean by this that 
you must select a man who has "no religion" and 
"no politics." That would be scarcely possible in 
this country, where every man is clothed with political 
functions. You may select a man having both, and it is 
entirely indifferent as to the comx")lexion of either. 
But neither must be so prominent in his make-up as to 
overshadow his other endowments, or excite "partisan" 
or "sectarian" antagonism. No matter how wise, pro- 
gressive and successful his administration may be in 
other respects, if he undertakes to give prominence to 
his political and religious views, or to inculcate them 
upon others, he will necessarily antagonize those differ- 
ing with him. The administrations of President Shan- 
non and of Dr. Laws furnish us with "affirmative 
testimony" of the most indubitable character in con- 
firmation of the position taken. Whilst, on the other 
hand, the administration of President Hudson, and the 
second administration of President Lathrop, afford 
us most cogent "negative proof" to the same effect, 
which is made well-nigh conclusive, when we add the 
further circumstance that Dr. Lathrop was recalled to 
the presidency by some of the men who favored his 
deposition ten years before. Some men learn wisdom 
by experience ; others heed not her teachings — but con- 
tent themselves with criticisms upon the moral status, 
which permits men to be influenced in secular matters 
by their religious and political affinities. It is the part 
of practical wisdom to take men as we find them — not 
as we would have them — and to order social conditions 
accordingly. 



UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 41 

The University was founded by men of all parties and 
sects — belongs to all parties and sects — is supported by 
all parties and sects — and, to prosper, must be patron- 
ized by all parties and sects. Two political parties are 
essential to the existence and perpetuity of a free gov- 
ernment ; and as long as our government shall stand 
there will be two parties in this country. The strength 
of parties is an ever- varying quantity. The party domi- 
nant to-day may be out of power to-morrow, to resume 
control on the reflux of the next popular wave. The 
history of our own State for the last ten years shows a 
gradual change has been, and is still going on. The 
margin between the two great parties to-day is so small 
that a " bastard faction " may turn the scale either way. 
We have a minority Governor with us to-day. And I 
can say to my Democratic friends, in all candor and 
kindness, we would have a Republican Governor here 
in his stead to help us "commemorate," had any other 
man than David R. Francis headed their ticket. But, 
as I have said before, he is a "Madison County" man, 
imbued with a spirit peculiar to her sons, which I can 
describe in no adequate terms, without invoking that 
"classic American vulgarism," " Get there, Eli." My 
friends, he got there, but it required a bold stroke of 
genius to accomplish it. It is a bold commander, who 
will enter the enemies' lines on the eve of battle and 
spike his guns ; but a bolder one, who will enter the 
lines of the enemy and turn his guns against his own 
columns. But all is fair in war, and since you gave 
us "your best man," we must not criticise methods. 
. But how are we to fill these halls with students, 
and utilize this great outlay made by the Federal and 



42 SEMI- CENTENNIAL OF THE 

State Governments, and the people of this " Grand old 
County "? This, I have already said, can only be done 
by securing the support, and patronage of all parties 
and sects in the State ; and that can only be done, by 
putting the University under ' ' independent rule. ' ' You 
ask me in plain terms how this is to be done ? I answer : 
If I were a member of the Board of Curators, 1 would 
under no circumstances select a man, who was not a 
" Professional Educator," and now engaged in the line 
of his profession. The head of this institution is no 
place for experiments. You ask me where he is to be 
found ? I answer : Occupying a secondary position in 
some one of the great schools of the country, with 
qualifications fitting him for the first. His religious 
faith, I should regard as a matter of utter indifference, 
so he did not belong to the ministry. In deference to 
the present dominance of the Democratic party in the 
State, I should select a Democrat, and recognizing the 
wisdom of that party, as illustrated in its selection of 
Presidential candidates for the last twenty-five years, I 
would select a "Northern Democrat,-' but in no event 
should he have seen service, on either side in the late 
war. Such a man will prove acceptable to all parties, and, 
if endowed with dignified and affable personal qualities, 
with fair executive ability, his rule will prove peaceful 
and prosperous. AYith such a head, only one thing 
more is necessary to put our Alma Moier on the high 
road to success, and to bring within her walls at least 
the major part of the two thousand sons of Missouri, 
who are now seeking the advantages of " Higher Educa- 
tion ' ' in other States. 



UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 43 

'-'' EndowmenV^ should be the watch- word of every 
friend of the University. It means independence ; it 
means economy. It will take the University out of 
the "Political Caldron" where biennially the life-blood 
is boiled out of it. It will lift the University above 
the plane of "party politics," and place its support 
beyond the reach of the shifting currents of popular 
favor, or prejudice. Education constitutes the "Main 
Arch" upon which rests the superstructure of "Civil 
Government" in our Commonwealth ; and the Univer- 
sity is the " Key Stone" in that Arch. Impair it, dis- 
place it, and the whole fabric will topple and fall. The 
day has passed when " the scholar" is regarded as one 
of the drones of society, feeding upon the honey stored 
by others ; — when it was thought a dangerous venture, 
to attempt the sublime heights of truth, enveloped as 
they were in the clouds of superstition, which hung 
about them. Bathed in the sunlight of this " Mne- 
teenth Century," it does not require the telescope of 
priestcraft" to discern the narrow path, which leads up 
to those dread heights, where it was once thought, ' ' only 
angels dare to tread." Freed from the shackles of 
"ignorance," "arrogance," and "blind prejudice" 
" enfranchised thought" is destined to rule the world ; 
overriding Despotism, Anarchy, Sectarianism and Exclu- 
sivism — planting her victorious standard upon the 
eternal rock of truth and justice, recognizing virtue 
and intelligence as "the only tests of manhood." I 
have said "endowment" meant economy. It means a 
saving of not less than eight per cent, of the amount 
appropriated by the State, for the annual support of the 
University. The per diem cost of the last ' ' Greneral 



44 SEMI-CEIS^TEISris^IAL OF THE 

Assembly" to the State was 82.070. The time occu- 
pied in the discussion of University appropriations, in 
hearing and considering majority and minority reports, 
expenses of visiting and other committees, with cost of 
printing and other expenses, amounted to more than 
ten per cent, upon the entire appropriations made for 
its support. Why throw away biennially this consid- 
erable sum, when by the endowment plan not a dollar 
more will be taken from the State treasury, than by 
direct appropriation ? All the public needs is educa- 
tion upon this proposition, and with proper effort on 
part of the alumni, and the friends of the University, 
ably seconded, as we know they will be, by our enlight- 
ened and progressive Governor, our next General 
Assembly w^ill, without doubt, adopt the wise and 
economic plan of endowment. 

But, my friends, I must close. The presence of 
these distinguished gentlemen admonishes me that I 
have already occupied too much of your time, and 
deferred too long the rich treat they have in store for 
you. In extenuation, I must be allowed to plead the 
magnitude of the theme, the relation I have borne to it 
personally, and to the noble band of men who stood 
sponsors at its birth, and those who held up its hands 
in its infant struggles. Along the pathway of "fifty 
years," over which I have hastily traveled, are so many 
flowers— many faded — but their fragrance lingers still ; 
so many sunny slopes, about which shadows are gath- 
ering ; so many faces of loved ones, grown brighter by 
transition ; so much fit to be recalled — so much worthy 
to be treasured, that a consenting heart has led away a 
too willing judgment into fields illimitable, inexhaust- 
able. 



UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 45 

Fellow alumni, curators, faculty, friends, with 
one heart, one mind, one purpose, putting aside every 
consideration except the upbuilding of this institution, 
which should be the pride and glory of every Missou- 
rian — let us by one grand united effort lift her up to the 
plane where unimpeded by "partisan " or " sectarian " 
jealousy, she will work oot the beneficent career 
designed by her founders, and hoped for by every 
friend of "Higher Education " in the land. 



UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 47 



The Chairman in introducing Gov. Francis said : 

We are honored by the presence of our chief Executive, Governor 
David R. Francis, and the brilliant staff which accompanies him. 

Before his election Governor Francis cherished a deep and lively 
interest in this, the head of the State's educational system. 

A college-bred man, he has a large conception of what the State 
owes to the University and of what it may become and do for the 
State ; and he has uniformly shown his zeal, and devotion to the 
institution. It is a matter of congratulation to the friends of higher 
education that our able and distinguished Governor, and the officers of 
state associated with him, are so heartily, and zealously co-operating 
with us in advancing the interests of the University. I trust I may 
not be suspected of any violation of his political confidence in saying, 
that it is his earnest purpose and hope to signalize and render illus- 
trious his administration by securing, during his term of office, the 
complete and ample endowment of the University, thus forever free- 
ing it from the annoyance and uncertainty of seeking biennial appro- 
priations from the State Legislature, and placing it on a firm and 
stable basis, where its income and future will be assured and certain. 



The State University of Missouri is an institution 
in which every citizen of the Commonwealth should 
feel a pride. In its welfare and progress every officer 
connected with the legislative, executive and judicial 
branches of the State government should cherish and 
manifest an interest. The act of Congress conferring 
statehood upon the Territory of Missouri, the ordinance 
accepting the provisions of that act, and the first Con- 
stitution of the State in 1820 recognized the importance, 
necessity and benefits of such a seminary of learning, 
enjoined its establishment upon the people and partially 



48 SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF THE 

provided for its maintenance. In fact I might say that 
the founding of a state university was one of the condi- 
tions of Missouri's admission into the Union. Encour- 
aging and fostering the University is an obligation of 
the State and no less a duty which we owe to society, to 
ourselves and to those who come after. It is a pleasure 
for me to join with the alumni, curators, faculty, friends 
and patrons of the University in commemorating the 
semi-centennial of its existence ; in testifying to the 
generosity, fidelity and efficiency of those devoted, 
noble men who nurtured it through adversity and 
rejoiced in its prosperity ; in acknowledging the import- 
ant part it has performed in the intellectual advancement 
and material development of the State ; in demonstrating 
the great aid it is capable of rendering, if worthily 
sustained, in the future progress of Missouri, and in 
expressing the hope that the fiftieth anniversary of its 
birth may prove the beginning of a new era of usefulness 
and prosperity. 

The history of this institution for the past half cen- 
tury is a record of trials endured and survived, difficul- 
ties encountered and surmounted, but there have been 
many triumphs achieved, benefits of great magnitude 
conferred and good accomplished in an inestimable 
degree. That the State has not granted it the aid that 
many claim it was entitled to, is more attributable to 
the difficulties which beset a comparatively young com- 
monwealth, and subsequently to the devastation and 
hardship and burdens infiicted by a factional strife 
waged on her own soil by her sons, rather than to any 
want of appreciation of so valuable an institution on 
the part of her people. 



UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 49 

Missouri is, and lias ever been, the friend of educa- 
tion ; but the careful and economical spirit of her citi- 
zens has prevented the Commonwealth from assuming 
obligations which she could not clearly foresee her 
ability to discharge. The first care of an enlightened 
State is its public schools, and of them Missouri has 
never been neglectful. In 1842, with but 13 counties 
in the State and with a school population of 4,010, 
$1,999.60 were appropriated from the State revenue. In 
1890, with a school population of 900,000, $838,000 will 
be set apart from the State revenue, or one-third thereof, 
for the schools. And $5,000,000 will be expended for 
the maintenance. It is my opinion, however, that 
higher education in Missouri has not had that assistance 
from the public treasury which its importance demands, 
and the welfare of the State justifies. 

Education has not only been the chiefest hand- 
maiden of civilization, but has always walked hand in 
hand with popular government, and is to-day, as it has 
ever been, the surest safeguard of liberty. The proudest 
boast of an American citizen is that his is a nation of 
freemen. That immortal declaration of our forefathers, 
which electrified the world one hundred and fourteen 
years ago to-day, proclaimed liberty as the dearest right 
of man, and pledged for its iDrotection "our lives, our 
fortunes and our sacred honor." What a priceless 
heritage ! The peerless author of that inspired enunci- 
ation of human right was an unwavering friend of 
education, and, by his direction, yonder shaft, which for 
so many years marked at Monticello the resting place 
of all that was mortal of Thomas Jefferson, bore on its 
face the inscription: "Author of the Declaration of 



50 SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF THE 

*' American Independence ; of the Statute of Virginia 
^'for Religious Freedom ; and Father of the University 
" of Virginia." How highly he appreciated a thorough 
education, let that enduring monument testify ; and 
there let it stand, and may it serve to keep ever fresh 
in the minds of our youth those undying principles of 
liberty and government of which Jefferson was the 
ablest expounder, and on the observance of which the 
perpetuity of our institutions depends. 

How amply repaid would those men and women 
feel who have toiled and struggled if they could to-day 
contemplate the far-reaching benefits bestowed by this 
University, and which their labors have helped to build 
up. All that the State has contributed from its revenue 
has been returned with compound interest. Its influ- 
ence has raised the standard of good citizenship. Its 
sons have performed an important part in directing the 
destinies of the State. They have aided in the framing 
and executing of its laws, and the development of its 
resources. The influence for good in a community of 
an educated man with character is almost inestimable. 
As the State grows and society advances, the necessity 
for higher education becomes greater. In this day 
there is no avocation in life where scientific knowledge 
cannot be used to advantage. The time has passed 
when a boy can be too highly educated. Competition 
in all pursuits is so strong that, to succeed or excel, a 
man must go forth well equipped. That uneducated 
men have done well in many instances does not prove 
that they would not have done better if they had had 
the benefit of a store of useful knowledge which their 
practical sense would have enabled them to apply to 



UJS^IYEESITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 51 

good advantage. The domain of science has broadened 
so greatly that methods of education have been changed. 
The mental training which it was formerly thought was 
the principal worth, if not the real value, of an educa- 
tion, is now accomplished at the same time that the 
student' s mind is stored with a supply of knowledge 
bearing on, and of use in, that pursuit in life which he 
proposes to follow. The boy who intends to devote his 
time to agriculture, or to manufacturing, no less than 
the one who proposes practicing law or medicine, should 
acquire those facts and imbibe those principles which 
he can use and apply in the struggle for maintenance 
and proficiency. The University has not been slow to 
recognize the tendencies of the times, or the necessities 
of a progressive age. Its schools have been increased 
from year to year, and its curriculum enlarged, as rap- 
idly as the revenue of the institution would permit. 
To increase the efficiency of this University, and to 
extend its influence, is not only the sacred duty but the 
wisest policy of the State. 

It is a positive and a serious loss to the State when- 
ever one of her sons goes beyond the limits of Missouri 
to acquire or complete his education ; and it is likewise 
a detriment to the boy who proposes to become a citizen 
of the Commonwealth, if he is compelled to leave the 
people, the associations, the institutions and the cus- 
toms with which he should become familiar, and among 
Vhich his life's work is to be performed. 

He is away at a time when he is most impressible 
and his character the most pliable. He returns an 
exotic, and for years, if not for life, is deficient in those 
instincts or intuitions which give him an influence and 



52 SEMI-CENTEJSriSriAL OF THE 

enable him to divine or readily detect the trend of public 
sentiment. Why should not our children have the 
same advantages of education at home that Massachu- 
setts affords at Harvard, Connecticut at Yale, New 
Jersey at Princeton, New York at Columbia or Cornell, 
Michigan at Ann Arbor, or Virginia at Charlottesville, 
her State University ? Look at the universities of the 
Old World, Oxford, Cambridge, G-lasgow, Edinburg, 
Dublin, Bologna, Salamanca, Barcelona, Heidelberg, 
Vienna ; all can point to an existence of 400 to 800 years, 
and to incalculable benefits bestowed on their countries 
and the race. What an influence they have had in 
moulding modern thought and in promoting civilization ! 
Beyond computation is the debt that society owes 
to those self-sacrificing, toiling, conscientious educators 
who instil into youthful minds an insight into great 
principles, an appreciation of the force of a moral truth, 
and inspire them with the courage to defend it fear- 
lessly. All the great revolutions and reformations of 
the past ten centuries can be traced to the educational 
institutions of the time. I would rather have the influ- 
ence of the teachers of a country than to frame its laws 
or compose its songs. Nor is their influence confined to 
the students. This University, like all first-class insti- 
tutions of learning, has been blessed in having among 
its presidents and professors men of character and con- 
victions, whose example and principles shed luster on 
the State, and were productive of good beyond the- 
confines of the community, county or section in which 
they lived and labored. The true university professor 
does not teach only what others have written, but is 
himself a leader of thought. He inculcates principles 



UlN'IYERSITY OF THE STATE OF ^IISSOURI. 53 

and shows their application ; he demonstrates facts and 
occurrences in history, and leads his pupils to rea- 
son out their causes, their bearings on concurrent 
events, and to deduce therefrom the lessons which the 
past teaches. The progress of civilization is marked by 
the establishment of universities, and the culture of an 
age by the liberality with which it fosters them. Tem- 
pora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis is true of 
universities as well as of men. As I have already said, 
the method of education is changing, and the new 
method is an improvement on the old. It is the result 
of the increased advantage, the almost absolute necessity 
of a higher, a more thorough, training in every pursuit in 
life. A boy must now be educated with a view of titting 
him for the vocation he proposes to follow. Herbert Spen- 
cer says the intellectual activities should be exercised 
in the following order : Firsts for direct self-preserva- 
tion or the maintenance of life and health ; second, for 
indirect self-preservation or the means of getting a live- 
lihood ; third, for discharging the duties of a parent ; 
fourth, for performing the duties of a citizen ; Jlfth, for 
the most perfect production and highest enjoyment of 
art in all its forms, the accomplishments of life. The 
university which will develop the minds of coming gen- 
erations in that order will at the same time, impart 
strength of character, and the beneficial results of its 
teachings will reach far and wide. 

To what would you attribute the hardships, I was 
about to say the oppressions, to which the agricultural 
classes of this country are subjected? They far out- 
number any other element of our population and con- 
tribute most of its wealth. Why should not farming 



54 SEMI-CE]S"TENNIAL OF THE 

in the finest agricultural country in the world be as 
profitable as any other vocation ? The apparently 
superior opportunities afforded in the professions, or in 
manufacturing or mercantile pursuits, attract to their 
ranks the young yeomanry of the country, and soon 
the plough boy of the field is directing the financial 
policy, managing the commercial interests and control- 
ling the political destinies of the country. The foot of 
the rustic is ever turned to the marts of commerce and 
the busy gatherings of men. He comes with clumsy 
tread and homespun dress ; but he takes the first place 
in the market and the synagogue. The millionaire 
dashes by in his splendid turnout ; a raw, tall lad with 
a bundle of clothes on a stick looks on with wonder, 
and becomes in a few short years the employer of that 
man's children. As I heard an ardent educator lament 
in these halls a few months ago: "The farmer edu- 
cates his boy off of the farm instead of onto the farm." 
The theory of the farmers is that the son who pro- 
poses to till the soil neither requires nor desires as high 
an education as the brother who intends to become a 
lawyer, a doctor or a merchant. AVhy, do not the prin- 
ciples of chemistry, of mechanics, and a knowledge of 
the higher mathematics, enter into the practical life of 
the farm ? Give an equal number of cattle, sheep or 
hogs to each of two boys of like energy and natural 
ability, and the one who has the most through knowl- 
edge of biology or the science of life will show the 
better result, although his neighbor may say he had the 
" better luck." This is the useful view or the practical 
only. But why should not the farmer's son have as 
thorough an acquaintance with history, government 



UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 55 

and society as any other citizen ? Do yon think, my 
agricultural friends, that there would be any occasion 
or necessity for an alliance, offensive and defensive, 
among agriculturists ten years hence, if the growing 
generation of farmers had the benefits of higher educa- 
tion and all that it implies or imparts ? What a great 
advantage it would be to the State, in its material and 
social welfare, if this Agricultural College were training 
for the farm one thousand of our stalwart youth. 

Yes, there is political and social need for higher 
education, especially in a government of the people 
by the people. It is difficult at best to discriminate 
between government and oppression, and equally nice 
is the distinction between liberty and license. Every 
educational institution, however, that is established 
throughout the land is an additional guarantee to the 
observance of the law and the preservation of order, is 
a strong bulwark to good government, and a safeguard 
to personal liberty. It is true that in this country the 
majorities rule, but the majorities are sometimes more 
tyrannical than despots. In a republic like ours there 
are many problems to be solved. It is of no benefit to 
us to know the mistake and weaknesses of those govern- 
ments which have flourished and decayed in the past if 
we cannot take advantage of that knowledge to steer 
clear of similar breakers that may beset our own path- 
way. There is no occasion to be alarmed, or distrustful 
of the future of our institutions, but the great accumu- 
lation of wealth in the hands of a few, and the encour- 
agement of dependency upon the government, together 
with the growing inclination to deprive the different 



56 SEMI-CENTENI^IAL OF THE 

sections of this extensive country of the priceless privi- 
lege of home rule are, among others, some of the ques- 
tions to be considered or errors to be corrected. Is 
there any reason why Missouri should not have a uni- 
versity to train statesmen, philosophers, scientists I To 
what is the great wealth of other and older States 
attributable? To greater and more diversified resources? 
To better climates? To a more intelligent or a more 
progressive population ? AVhere could you find a more 
appropriate location for a university than in this 
beautiful city, and in the midst of this cultured com- 
munity ? Here are all the incentives to intellectual 
effort and the very atmosphere is conducive of thought. 
When we think of how much has been accomplished 
here in the short space of fifty years and consider the 
vicissitudes through which Missouri has passed, we 
cannot but admire the wonderful progress that has been 
made. But much yet remains to be done. Never did 
an educational institution have a better field in which 
to labor. Here is a great commonwealth of inestimable 
resources which only await development to make Mis- 
souri the greatest State in the Union. Here is a popu- 
lation of over 3,000,000 souls and room and support for 
five times that number. Here is a school system unsur- 
passed and an enlightened public sentiment so favorable 
to education that it gives one-third of the State revenue 
to the maintenance of public schools. The students 
and the alumni who have gone from these halls for 
the past fifty years are shining examples and able advo- 
cates of the advantages here obtained, and constitute 
an army to battle for the welfare and the advancement 



UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI 57 

of their Alma Mater. With the good will of all right- 
thinking people throughout the State this Univ^ersity 
deserves, and I trust will receive, liberal aid from the 
next General Assembly that convenes at Jefferson City. 
Standing on the threshold of the second half century of 
the State University of Missouri, let us hope that five 
decades from now, when in 1940, on the anniversary of 
our independence as a nation, the centennial of this 
institution shall be celebrated, and when Missouri's 
10,000,000 of population, developed resources and 
increased wealth shall have given her that position and 
influence in the nation to which she is entitled and for 
which she is destined, this University may have sur- 
passed even the promise it gives to-day of being a model, 
far-famed institution of learning, with an able faculty 
of renowned thinkers, rich in a devoted attendance of 
earnest students and commensurate in all respects with 
the dignity and grandeur of the great commonwealth 
of Missouri. 



LD3486 
1890 



Missouri. University. 

University of the state of Missouri. An account of the 
semi-centennial celebration of its founding at Columbia, 
Missouri, July 4, 1890, with oration and speeches, deliv- 
ered on the occasion, and a list of the surviving donors, 
who, in 1839, subscribed $118,000 to secure its location 
and establishment ... Columbia, Mo., Herald publishing 
house, 1890. 

Ill p. illns., ports. 22 J'^". 

Printed by alumni and friends of the institution. 



Library of Congress ]T)W\'\ '°^ Q 



11-20020 





c/X. 




CZ^oc^-^Z.,^<r?^ 



UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOUUI. 59 



The Chairman in introducing Col. Lawson said : 

Felloiv Citizens : 

I beg to introduce, as the next speaker on this program, Colonel 
Leonidas M. Lawson, of New York City. 

Col. Lawson has claims to be heard by you and all the people of 
Missouri for many and varied reasons : 

He is an alumnus of the University, of the class of '53 ; he was 
the youngest member of our General Assembly in the memorable 
session of 1860-61 ; a gallant soldier in the terrible contest that 
followed; has achieved distinction in this and distant lands; and 
now, a prominent citizen of a sister State, he comes with Avidely- 
extended experience of men and affairs at home and abroad, to tell us 
of his hopes for [the future of our great State, of which he is a son, 
and, I firmly believe, still a loving and devoted son. And, further, 
there is an interest, almost dramatic, around a circumstance of the 
coming to the Territory of Missouri of Col. Lawson's grandfather, the 
Rev. Mr. Lawson, who, while camped at Cairo, Illinois, in 1804, await- 
ing the arrival of barges to transport his family to St. Loais, witnessed 
the evacuation of the last French post in Missouri ( Bird's Point ) ; the 
furling of the Fleur-de-lis and the unfurling of the stars and stripes 
west of the Mississippi Eiver. And again, — In July, 1865, Col. Lawson, 
then a member of the Board of Curators of this University, offered the 
resolution appointing a committee, of which he was made chairman, 
to present a memorial to the General Assembly, urging the location of 
the Agricultural and Mechanical College, provided for by an act 
of Congress of July 2, 1862, in connection with, and as an integral 
part of, the University of the State. 

This memorial, printed in the senate journal, contains the germ of 
every idea presented in the discussion of that great subject, which 
continued until the location of the College, as urged by that resolution, 
in 1870. 

It is grateful to learn from the lips of your Chair- 
man that something done by me has benefited this great 
institution of learning, but his mention of the fact 
serves to remind his fellow alumni that of her sons 



60 SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF THE 

none lias ^iven to the University so much time and 
labor and so valuable services as himself ; services 
which history will record upon imperishable tablets 
with the pre-eminent achievements of James Sidney 
Rollins. Reversing the sentiment of the [mother of 
Brasidas, it is bare justice to say of Robert Levi Todd : 
''Missouri hath no nobler son than he." 

The barges which brought up the Mississippi and 
the Missouri the pioneers of this region had no names 
which have become historic, like the vessels which came 
to Jamestown with the first permanent English settlers 
of America, but no better or braver bands were borne 
on the decks of the "Susan Constance," the "Discov- 
erer' ' or the ' ' God Speed ' ' than the men and women 
who came to Missouri in these primitive crafts. 

The settlement and development of the common- 
wealth in which this University is situated furnish, as 
you will allow, an appropriate theme for this time and 
place. The marvelous story of the brave pioneers who 
led the way to this rich valley may fitly be told here at 
every Commencement and every anniversary. A native 
Missourian, proud of my State's history, and believing 
in her great future, I have chosen Missouri and the 
Mississippi Valley as a topic for the time allotted me 
in the exercises devoted to the commemoration of 
the first half century of the existence of my revered 
Alma Mater. 

It is hard to realize, standing here to-day, in this 
brilliant center of one of the greatest states of the 
Union, that there are now living within her borders 
children of the men and women who inhabited this 



UNIVEESITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 61 

valley when every acre of land lying between the sum- 
mit of the Alleghanies and the shores of the Pacific, 
from the eastern coast of Florida all along the Gulf of 
Mexico, even to the uttermost end of the continent, 
belonged to Spain ; that these same men and women 
saw the eastern half of the great valley conquered by 
Great Britain, only to be relinquished twenty years 
later to our new-born republic, barely one handred 
years ago ; hard to realize that there are still living on 
the soil of Missouri children of the men and women 
who brought from the banks of the Seine the civili- 
zation of France and planted it along the borders of 
our great western rivers, and who laid the foundations 
of all the proud commonwealths which now crowd our 
country from the banks of the Mississippi to the 
distant Pacific. 

It is hard to realize that there are now living 
amongst us men and women who have seen the area of 
the United States extended from the eastern coast of 
Florida to the Rio Grande, from the Mississippi to the 
Pacific, and increased from 827,000 square miles in 1804 
to over 3,600,000 at this time— men and women who, in 
their childhood, saw the Spanish and the Frencli flags 
hauled down, and the stars and the stripes thrown to 
the breeze, in token of the accomplishment of one of 
the most momentous events in the history of mankind, 
the dedication of all this vast area, and of all America, 
to civil and religious liberty, to freedom, and to democ- 
racy — in token, too, of the triumph of manhood and the 
rights of man over caste and the pretensions of kings 
and emperors. 



62 SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF THE 

How impressive the fact that the two great actors 
in this mighty drama, on this almost boundless stage, 
were the two greatest men of their day, — Napoleon the 
impersonation of Csesarism, and Jefferson the imper- 
sonation of democracy — of that beneficent democracy 
before whose radiant coming the shades of feudalism 
and oppression and wrong fled as the shades of night 
fly when the effulgent sun comes up from the east in 
his golden chariot, surrounded by the bright-robed 
hours of day and heralded by the morning star. 

During all the years that have passed since Mis- 
souri became a part of the Union she has been one of 
the most prominent figures in every national contest. 
It was the question of admitting her to statehood in 
the Union that broiight on the first great struggle 
between the North and South — between slavery and 
anti-slavery — and led to the enactment of the Missouri 
Compromise, whereby slavery was prohibited in the 
greater part of the Louisiana Purchase. It was her 
soldiers under Doniphan — one of whom has just 
addressed you, and one of whom is President of your 
Board of Curators — who, in 1846, conquered New Mex- 
ico, embracing not only that Territory but the greater 
part of Colorado, Utah, Nevada and Arizona. It was 
her soldiers under Price who held the conquered prov- 
ince in their firm grasp until Mexico relinquished it to 
the Union by the Treaty of Gruadalupe Hidalgo. It 
was upon her soil and on her borders that the final 
great contest between the North and the South, the 
death struggle between slavery and freedom was begun ; 
when Kansas and Nebraska were fought for and 
lost to the South forever. It was on her soil that old 



UlN^IVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 63 

John Brown began his fight upon slavery in the States 
where it already existed, and lighted the flames of war, 
those fierce flames which enveloped the whole country 
in their wrath and consumed the fetters of every slave, 
And it was upon her soil that the first slaves that were 
ever forcibly emancipated by the federal government 
were set free and the doom of slavery irrevocably pro- 
nounced. 

It was in Missouri, too, that the first battle of the 
war was fought and the first blood in that momentous 
strife was shed, and hers is the sad distinction to be the 
only State in which battles were fought between armies 
composed wholly of her own citizens. 

It was Missouri that settled Oregon and gave to 
California the best of her pioneers and her first gov- 
ernor ; and there is not a State or Territory between the 
Mississippi and the Pacific which does not owe to Mis- 
souri a great part of its prosperity. It was Missouri's 
great Senator, Thomas H. Benton, who was the fore- 
most champion of the West in Congress, its most pow- 
erful advocate in the country, and the j)rojector and 
earliest advocate of a railroad to the Pacific ; and it was 
her hardy sons whose adventurous footsteps marked 
out the historic trails across the great plains and indi- 
cated the route for those iron trails that penetrate 
Mexico and extend to the Grolden G-ate, who have 
made the name of Pike famous throughout "all the 
broad border" and synonymous with everything that 
is brave and manly and with every virtue that adorns 
the frontier. 

During this same time Missouri has grown to be the 
fifth State in the Union in point of population, and one 



64 SEMI-CE^^TEX:S'IAL OF THE 

of the very foremost in all that constitutes a great and 
prosperous commonwealth. During this period also 
the valley of the Mississippi has become the center of 
the Union. When the Spanish and French flags were 
furled at St. Louis in 1804, and the flag of the Union 
hoisted for the first time on this side of the Mississippi, 
the center of population of the whole country was in 
the vicinity of Baltimore. Since that time it has been 
moving westward at the rate of more than fifty miles 
every ten years, till in 1880 it had passed Cincinnati, 
and is now half way between that city and St. Louis, 
which it will reach before the close of this century, 
there to remain for ages to come, with this great State 
as the everlasting center of the Union, of a Union 
which will ultimately extend from the Arctic seas to the 
Isthmus of Darien, and which will embrace within its 
happy borders the whole continent of JSTorth America. 
And what State could better be the center of such a 
grand confederation? Even now, in her youth, there 
are only four of all the States which have as many 
inhabitants ; only two that have as many acres of land 
under cultivation ; not one which expends as much 
money annually for the education of her children, and 
not one which is more prosperous, or whose people are 
more contented and happy. In all the Union there is 
not a State, nor in all the wide world a country, which 
can boast a more fertile soil or better climate or such 
majestic rivers ; and what praise is there which we 
might not lavish on her people ( Coming hither with 
all the Saxon's love of liberty, all his indomitable 
pluck and enterprise, the English-speaking conquerors 
of the great West felt fromi the beginning, and have 



TJISriVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 65 

always felt, the humanizing influence of that graceful 
French civilization which had already taken possession 
of Missouri ; and the blended races have produced a 
people who have every trait that distinguishes either 
Saxon or Celt, Englishman or Frenchman. Along with 
these are all of those hardy American virtues which are 
our peculiar heritage, chief among which is that sense 
of the dignity of man which makes it impossible for 
Americans to acknowledge fealty to any human master, 
or to be subservient to any privileged caste, but 
prompts them to claim and maintain that all men were 
created equal. 

These progenitors of yours, these founders of Mis- 
souri, had thrown off before they came hither all 
obedience, even intellectual, to European notions and 
European ways, and had become American in the 
fullest sense of that glorious word. They found and 
they left upon the map of Missouri names which per- 
petuate the remembrance of the French settlement of 
the State — St. Louis, St. Charles, St. Joseph and Ste. 
Genevieve ; but not even love of their old homes in far- 
off Kew England, New York, Virginia or Pennsylvania 
could induce them to give to their new settlements 
such servile names as Essex, Middlesex, York, Lan- 
caster, King's, Queen's, Prince Edward, King George, 
King William or Princess xinne. They chose rather 
names redolent of the American soil — Columbia, Lex- 
ington, Liberty, Lidependence, Franklin, Washington, 
Jefferson and Boone. 

It is not, however, the Missouri of the past of 
which I would speak, nor the proud and prosperous 
Missouri of the present ; but of that Missouri of the 



66 SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF THE 

future, whose greatness and glory are just beginning to 
dazzle our minds. 

Nature has fashioned her to be the central star in 
the galaxy of indestructible states which are to consti- 
tute an indissoluble union of all the North American 
peoples. Peerless in soil, in climate and in situation, 
she is the center of that unmatched system of rivers 
which makes the valley of the Mississsippi the fittest 
abode for civilized men that has ever been created. 
Compared with it what are the valleys of the Po and 
the Danube ? What the valleys of the Euphrates and 
Tigris, of the Ganges and the Nile ? In all the world 
there is no such river as the Mississippi, not one like 
unto the Missouri ; and yet these are but parts of that 
mighty river system to which belong also the Ohio and 
the Red, the Illinois and the Arkansas, the Tennessee 
and the Cumberland, and a multitude of lesser streams, 
each of them greater than the Seine or the Thames. 

From the time of Laclede, from the time of La 
Salle, from the time of De Soto, from the dark ages of 
the unsearchable past, down to the day that Napoleon 
surrendered this great valley to Jefferson — down to the 
day that the Creator of all the world was ready to turn 
it over to the occupancy of yree men^ to be a possession 
unto them and to their descendants forever, the Missis- 
sippi and the Missouri had been flowing to the Gulf 
through limitless wastes and interminable forests, build- 
ing up the delta of the Mississippi from the mouth of 
the Ohio to the Gulf, and preparing a habitation for 
God's chosen people. 

The Mississippi was still what it was when Hen- 
nepin, first of white men to search out its mysteries. 



UlN-IVEESITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI 67 

floated down its unknown current in his bark canoe. 
Tlien "The young Mississippi," says Parkman, "fresh 
"from its northern springs, unstained as yet by unhal- 
" lowed union with the riotoias Missouri, flowed calmly 
' ' on its way, amid strange and unique beauties ; a 
"wilderness clothed with velvet grass ; forest-shadowed 
"valleys; lofty heights whose smooth slopes seemed 
"leveled with the scythe; domes and pinnacles, ram- 
" parts and ruined towers, the work of no human hand. 

" The canoe of the voyagers, borne on the tranquil 
"current, glided in the shade of gray crags festooned 
"with honey-suckles, by trees mantled with grape- 
" vines, dells bright with the flowers of the white 
"euphorbia, the blue gentian and the purple balm, 
"and through matted forests where the red squirrels 
"leaped and chattered." 

When La Salle, a few years later (1682), took up 
the work which Hennepin had laid down, he floated 
past the mouth of the Missouri, "whose headlong cur- 
rent, opaque with mud," thenceforth impressed on 
the smaller stream its own peculiar characteristics ; past 
the Ohio bringing its own great tribute of waters to 
swell the now rapid current of the great Mississippi ; 
floated along through wastes of impenetrable swamps, 
and dark forests "inimitably spread," whose only 
denizens were scattered tribes of savage Indians ; past 
the Red River and down to the Gulf. The river was 
still what it had always been, since first the wild buffalo 
drank of the stream, one of nature's mighty forces 
doing evermore the Creator's will, but servant to no 
mortal man. 



68 SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF THE 

During all the time of the French and Spanish domin- 
ion no change was wrought in the river ; very little in the 
bordering lands. With the purchase of Louisiana, in 
1804, and the advent of the backwoodsmen of the Ohio, 
those founders of commonweaths, who boasted that 
they w^ere "half horse and half alligator," there came 
the foreshadowing of a change. The country began to 
be Americanized, and to feel the impulse of our tireless 
American energy, and irresistible American enterprise. 
The Indian's canoe gave way to the white man's flat- 
boat, to his keel-boat and to his barge. But with these 
the great river played as men play with the toys of 
children. Man had not yet learned to subdue the 
mighty stream and to make it the servant of his will. 
The Almighty had not yet put into the hands of man 
the means to conquer it and to use it. But the time to 
do this was at hand. He had taken the country, from 
kings and emperors, and delivered it to free men. 
These were rushing in to occupy it ; and to subdue it 
they were extending their settlements in every direc- 
tion, up and down the Mississippi, up the Missouri, 
everywhere. Flat-boats, and barges, and keel-boats, had 
been good enough in their day — good enough for the 
easy-going French trapper — and for the Spanish 
searcher after gold. When they were fortunate, they 
made their trips from St. Louis to New Orleans and 
back in five or six months. Sometimes the barges and 
the keel-boats came back, sometimes they did not ; the 
flat-boats never returned. In the new order of things 
they were utterly out of place. The time had come 
when it was absolutely necessary for man to master the 
Mississippi, and to make it his servant, and to use this 



UNIVEESITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 69 

mightiest force of nature for the convenience, the hap- 
piness, the civilization of man. On the Atlantic sea- 
board Fulton had just XDerfected his great invention, 
the application of steam to navigation. He had 
built a boat with which he could navigate the Hud- 
son and the sluggish waters of the sea coast. Recogniz- 
ing the greater held that lay before him in the West, 
he built at Pittsburg, in 1807, a steamboat — the 
Claremont — with which he steamed up and down the 
placid Ohio from Pittsburg to Louisville. Encouraged 
by this experiment, he built another boat, the Orleans, 
in 1812, and with it ran down the Ohio and down the 
Mississippi to New Orleans. Bat it was to no purpose 
that he tried to return. The boat could not stem the 
rushing current of the Mississippi. It never ascended 
its mighty stream. The river was still unsubdued. He 
tried again and again, but failed always, and could 
never construct a boat which could breast successfully 
the current of the Mississipiji. 

A young western man, Henry M. Shreve, who was 
familiar with the western rivers, who had traded in 
keel-boats and flat-boats along the Ohio and the Missis- 
sippi, and knew these rivers, saw how to adapt Fulton' s 
invention to use in the West. He saw that the model of 
Fulton's boat must be radically changed, that its 
draught must be lessened, its weight decreased and its 
motive power strengthened. For Fulton's heavy low- 
pressure engines he substituted light, high-pressure 
engines, took the machinery out of the hold, and at 
last launched upon the waters of the Ohio the first 
western steamboat. Loading it with arms and ammuni- 
tion for General Jackson, who was then preparing to 



70 SEMl-CENTENN'IAL OF THE 

defend New Orleans against the British, he started 
down stream with his precious cargo, in the last days of 
1814. He quickly reached J^ew Orleans, and turned 
over the much-needed arms and ammunition to General 
Jackson. Then, at the request of the latter, he steamed 
down the Mississippi past the English batteries, and 
supplied Fort St. Philip with food and with munitions 
of war. The next day he returned safely to New 
Orleans and took part in the great battle. Shreve then 
ascended the Mississippi and the Ohio to Louisville in 
fifteen days, making the first trip up the Mississippi 
that had ever been made by steam. He had, in fact, 
solved the problem of steam navigation on the western 
rivers. The Almighty had taught man how to subdue 
those rivers to his will, and to make them his servants. 

Next came the clearing out of the rafts, snags and 
sawyers which obstructed the navigation of the Missis- 
sippi and its western tributaries. This was done ; and 
with its accomplishment began that era of unparalleled 
growth and unexampled prosperity which distinguishes 
the history of the great valley from 1820 to 1860. All 
the great rivers were crowded with steamboats, many 
of them paragons of beauty and fieetness. Pittsburgh, 
Cincinnati and Louisville, St. Paul, St. Louis and New 
Orleans became great centers of trade ; and number- 
less lesser cities crowded the banks of every navigable 
river, and the valley of the Mississippi already contained 
a greater population than the Atlantic slope. 

Meanwhile, railroads had been invented, and were 
being built in every direction. The East saw that it was 
through their use that it could hold the West in com- 
mercial vassalage. Capital stretched out these iron 



UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 71 

arms into ever 5^ valley and into every city and every 
village, and dragged th.eir substance eastward. The 
inventive faculty of man was tried to its utmost to 
perfect the means of railway transportation. The rivers 
were neglected, and, as a consequence, began to throw 
off the shackles which men had been putting upon them. 
Trade and travel, deserting them, began to follow the 
swift course of the railways. Then came the great war 
which closed them entirely and ruined the commerce of 
our inland seas. 

In all this we see one of the myriad illustrations of 
the fact that there is unending warfare between man 
and the forces of nature, that victory crowns man only 
when he does his utmost to deserve success, and that 
she quits him when he ceases to exercise "unceasing vig- 
ilance." The dull clods refuse to yield grass or grain 
unless we till them, and sow them with seed. Who 
could expect the abounding Mississippi and the mighty 
Missouri to yield obedience to those who did not possess 
the will and the power, and who did not use them both, 
with " unceasing vigilance," to hold their mighty force 
in subjection ? 

As night follows day and day follows night in 
unending succession, so, in the struggle between man 
and the forces of nature, one invention follows another 
and the result is civilization. One illustration may 
suffice: A few years ago all the great naval powers 
began to build armored ships which were impervious to 
every known projectile. Straightway projectiles of 
greater force were invented which went hurtling through 
the heaviest armor. Heavier and stronger armor was 



72 SEMI-CENTEXNIAL OF THE 

then devised and the contest was begun afresh ; and it 
goes on and will go on forever. 

So with the rivers and with railways. The Creator 
gave to the people of this valley the most glorious 
waterways that gladden the earth, fie gave them and 
all the rich lands on their banks and within their 
embrace ; the verdant waste of the prairies, those gar- 
dens of the desert ; the nnshorn fields, boundless and 
beautiful, to you, His most favored people, upon the one 
condition that you should subdue the rivers and hold 
them in subjection. Your fathers followed His com- 
mands, and this great valley was converted into a 
boundless garden. You, deluded by the rich gifts 
vrhich the East showered upon you, forgot your duty, 
loosened your hold upon the only half-conquered Mis- 
sissippi, and have consequently lost a vast deal of the 
prestige and power which were yours twenty-five years 
ago, and which still belong to you of right. 

That such a vast system of internal waters as that 
of the Mississippi and the Missouri and their confluents 
should remain without practical avail in this progressive 
era is more than a marvel, if looked at in the light of 
railroad comj)etition. In the East even artificial water- 
ways have held their own against the finest railways of 
the age. Look at the Erie Canal, built by the State of 
New York nearly three quarters of a century ago and 
still maintained by that commonwealth as a successful 
commercial enterprise, running parallel and in direct 
competition with the jS'ew York Central Railroad, 
acknowledged to be the best-equipped and managed 
road in this country. If such can be the case with a 
narrow^ and shallow ditch three hundred and sixty miles 



UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI, 73 

long, what must be the future fate of the lordly streams 
of this valley when developed by a wise national policy 
with the federal government at the helm ? 

It is only within the last ten years that you have 
begun anew a contest with the mighty river. • Men of 
intellect, capitalists, inventors, all western men, are 
now turning their thoughts, their deeds, their money, to 
the conquest of these great highways which nature has 
created for you with lavish beneticence. Who can doubt 
the result ? Who can doubt that before the end of this 
century these great water-ways will have become the 
highways of the Union, and that the railways will have 
become their mere tributaries ? The federal govern- 
ment is beginning to do its duty, and with the increased 
power of the valley in the next Congress it will do its 
duty with ever increasing vigor, and help the people 
of the West to conquer and civilize these great rivers, to 
make them what the Euphrates and the Tigris were to 
Babylon and to JN'ineveh, what the Mle was to Egypt, 
and what the Ganges has been to India for ages 
unknown. Yes, and a thousand times more ; for what 
were all of these rivers to the Mississippi and the 
streams that flow into it? And when the wise policy 
of the Secretary of State, James G. Blaine, shall have 
given to us unrestricted and reciprocal commerce with 
the southern continent, these vast rivers which, in 
nature's j)rovidence, all flow southward, will greet a 
wave of unexampled alfluence. 

There are some of us^who will see the Father of 
Waters leveed from the Ohio to the Gulf, and its flood 
of waters pouring in an unbroken current through 
deepened channels and reclaimed swamps, through 



74 SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF THE 

fields of corn and cotton and sugar, by white-walled 
villas, happy homes, and prosperous cities, bearing 
upon its broad and kindly bosom hundreds and thou- 
sand of steamboats, more beautiful and swifter than 
those ' ' greyhounds of the ocean, ' ' which now make 
their run from I^ew York to Liverpool in six days, with 
such regularity that one, defying storm and calm, may, 
on leaving St. Louis, telegraph to a friend in London 
the day and the hour when he will reach that metroj^olis. 

What has been done on the ocean can more surely 
be done on our inland seas. A few years ago the finest 
and fastest steamshijps took from ten to fourteen days to 
make the trip from New York to Liverpool. Now, men 
grow^ impatient because it takes a steamship six days to 
make the same trip with twice as much freight and four 
times as many passengers as w^ere carried ten years ago. 
In another year this time will be reduced to five days, 
and who can foresee what will happen in ten years ? 

Within that time you, too, will begin to grumble 
if you cannot make the trip from St. Louis to New 
Orleans in three days on steamboats which will excel in 
comfort, and safety, and elegance, every steamship 
which now floats on the Hudson, Long Island Sound 
or the Atlantic. 

Recent investigations by the government show that 
there are along the Mississippi, between Ste. Genevieve 
and the Gulf, 23,000,000 acres of swamp lands that will 
be reclaimed by the improvements that are now being 
made ; and that of these 2,000,000 acres are corn lands, 
15,000,000 cotton lands and 6,000,000 sugar lands. Add 
these to the hundreds of millions of rich lands that lie 
along the 14,000 miles of navigable rivers that flow into 



UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 75 

the Gulf through the Mississippi, and the valleys of the 
Nile and the Euphrates will, u^Don comparison with 
your great valley, dwindle into utter insignificance. 
And, yet, those valleys were the abodes of the most 
prosperous peoples of antiquity and the seats of its 
greatest and most enduring empires. 

Let us remember, too, one great moral and political 
fact — the uniform tendency of all great rivers to bind 
together politically, commercially and socially all the 
people that live upon their banks. It has been so 
during all the ages of which we have any historical 
account. We saw it demonstrated during our own 
great civil war, when the rivers of the West held the 
States together in their endearing clasp. We see it 
every day, and all of us feel the tightening of the 
embrace of these rivers, as they bind us day by day, 
and year by year, more closely and more firmly to 
our sisters of the valley. Unlike the ^' dissociahilis 
oceanus^'^^ of Horace, they do not divide and dissever, 
but they bring together and hold in an indissoluble 
union the people who live in their valleys. 

The population of the Mississippi Valley is to-day 
not more than forty to the square mile. Belgium has 
480 and Massachusetts 225. Shall not many who listen 
to me now live to see as many people to the square mile 
in all this valley as now occupy the frozen hills and 
sterile lands of Massachusetts or the prince-ruled plains 
of Belgium ? Are there not some here present who will 
live to see 100,000,000 free men living in the valley of 
the Mississippi, and to walk the streets of St. Louis 
and Kansas City when these cities shall be greater and 
more brilliant than the New York and London of to-day 1 



76 SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF THE 

Finally, in casting the 'horoscope of the future of 
this imperial commonwealth, what will be the destiny 
of Missouri at the end of half a century, when the 
graduates of this University of the year 1890 shall have 
reached the allotted age of man ? Situated at the heart 
of the continent, the center of its vital, productive and 
political forces, a conspicuous factor in all the sectional 
and national issues since she threw" off her territorial 
government, Missouri, during nearly seventy years of 
statehood in the American Union, in peace or war, in 
conflict with savage life or passing through civil strife, 
presents already a startling and impressive chapter in 
modern history. What has been accomplished by those 
who came here as pioneers, or were or are native to 
these borders, remains to be written by historians of 
intellectual stature equal to that of the narrators of the 
Peninsular War or the Conquest of Mexico. 

And, if there be a past so glittering with a pure 

and real American civilization, how shall we estimate 

her future development ? The ideal in this grand valley 

has always been less than the real, fiction less than fact ; 

yea, 

'• ^Tis strange but true ; for truth is always strange ; 
Stranger than fiction ; if it could be told. 
How much would novels gain by the exchange. ^^ 

That the great artery of the continent, the Missis- 
sippi, draining all the vast area between the Atlantic 
and the Pacific water-sheds into the Gulf of Mexico, 
will become the greatest internal highway of commerce 
since time began before the graduates of to-day shall 
reach the prime of life there is potent symptom and 
remarkable presage. 



UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 77 

''I hear the tread of pioneers, 
Of nations yet to be ; 
The first low wash of waves where soon 
Shall roll a human sea/^ 

The great alluvial empires outlying her banks have 
simply been scratched by the planter, the builder of 
cities, and the riparian engineer. Compared with the 
three great historic and fascinating streams of the Old 
World, the Mississippi stands supreme. 

The Nile, which has not a tribntary for over a 
thousand miles from the Mediterranean, flows through 
a desert with a fringe of soil a few miles wide under 
cultivation by artificial irrigation. The river beilongs 
to the invalid, the pleasure-seeker and the Egyp- 
tologist. Lazy-moving palaces, inhabited by luxurious 
millionaires, float upon its surface ; the ill-clad and 
hungry fellahin swarm along its shores, dwellers in mud 
habitations presenting the foulest forms of Oriental 
squalor, clumps of palm trees, Roman and Egyptian 
ruins at long intervals ; and this is all of Egypt — the 
Egypt of 20,000 years of history. 

And then the Danube, the great artery of travel 
through Southeastern Europe ! It is necessary, in 
descending the stream to the Turkish frontier, to change 
steamers no less than six times in three days on account 
of the varying depths and shallows ; while the Rhine, 
as anything more than a picturesque and historic 
water-way for travelers, is abandoned forever. 

But our grand Mississippi system, with its source 
in northern rills among the mountains of Montana, and 
its wonderful afliuents draining a territory of vast 



78 semi-ceis^texjs^ial of the 

extent, is not for the heyday of the tourist and the spec- 
ulative scientist alone, but to bear swiftly on, in vast 
fleets of commerce, our products and manufactures to 
the busy marts of man. Mechanical triumphs are now 
going forward, and great squadrons of inland com- 
merce will soon pit the river against the road, the 
steamboat against the iron horse ! What cities, what 
temples shall garnish these shores ! 

And when the IS'ational Legislature awakens to the 
fact that the time is not distant when the States and 
Territories watered by the Mississippi system will be 
the dominant power of the continent by geographical 
necessity, with a people numbering 100, 000, 000 then will 
Congress provide the resources for the engineering, 
preservation, maintenance and extension of this unpara- 
lelled bounty of a beneficent Providence. 

Fellow^ alumni, faculty, students and friends, 
permit me to felicitate myself upon the high honor 
offered me of joining in this day's observances, and to 
tender you thanks, greeting and salutation. 



UlS'IVEESITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 79 

Introducing Judge Dilley, Mr. Todd said : 

The Board of Curators, to whom the State entrusts the duty of 
caring for and directing the interests of the University— gentlemen 
selected for their intelligent devotion to the cause of higher educa- 
tion, — is represented by their chosen organ, Judge Dilley, whom I have 
the pleasure to present to you. 

Hon. B. M. Dilley spoke extemporaneously for the 
Curators. He began by saying, that the speakers who 
had preceded him "had disobeyed the Bible injunc- 
tion — they did not leave anything for the gleaners." 
He complimented Columbia and its "atmosphere redo- 
lent with culture." He intended always to help make a 
quorum by being found at Board meetings, and he 
thought that the Board intended to do its full duty by 
the institution. The Curators wished to secure the 
right man for President, no matter how long it took 
nor how much it cost. He did not care from whence 
the new President came or what his creed or politics. 
Judge Dilley spoke glowingly of Missouri's aid to 
education and of education's worth to the State, and 
urged in conclusion an active interest on the part of the 
friends of the University, in securing proper support 
and a liberal endowment for the institution. 

It is a source of keen regret to all friends of the 
University that we cannot present Judge Dilley' s speech 
in full. "He moved the crowd as if with electricity; 
"and so thrilling was his splendid eloquence and so 
"powerful the intellectual charm that the reporters, 
"themselves, pausing for a moment to get the run of 
"his address, were so captivated that they forgot to 
"take down his words." His was an able, effective 
and thrillingly eloquent speech, and fully sustained his 
reputation as "the orator of Northwest Missouri." 



80 



SEMI-CENTENXIAL OF THE 




The Chairman in introducing Mr. Gardiner Lathrop 
said : 

Fellow Citizens : 

The name of Lathrop, " clarum et vetierabile nomeii" within these 
walls, has a charm possessed by no other name. Dr. John H. Lathrop 
was the first President here. I hope I may, without impropriety, be 
allowed here publicly to express my deep sense of gratitude to him, 
and my thankfulness that so much of my college life was passed 
under his immediate care and instruction, which did so largely mould 
my thought and life. It seems eminently proper that the voice of 
his only son should be heard here to-day. But when it is added that 
the son is a worthy descendant of a noble sire ; an alumnus of the 
University, as likewise of Yale; a distinguished lawyer; an accom- 
plished scholar ; an active, valuable member of the Board of Curators, 
no iQore need be said to insure earnest attention to his eloquent words 
while he talks to us of " The Alumni and Our Alma Mater." 



UNITEKSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOUEI. 81 

"Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of 
Cathay," sings the poet. 

Better half a century of University life, say I, 
than the accumulated wealth of the ages. 

Alumni, Alma Mater, — children, mother ! What 
have we received at her hands % Mental and, must not 
I also add, moral training ? 

Not so much knowledge, as the power to think, to 
learn, to acquire. 

Not so much theology, religion, as character, right 
living. 

We go out into the world, year by year, better 
equipped for the battle of life than our fellows. Not 
so well versed perhaps in the tricks of trade, in the 
arts of the charlatan, or the sharp practices of the pet- 
tifogger, but with a mind better able to grasp the 
problems as they are presented and solve them ; better 
able to meet and to bear the disappointments of life 
with an equal mind, with constant resources within 
ourselves for enjoyment and consolation. 

The educated man can always climb the heights at 
will, survey the landscape, escape from the toil and 
turmoil of the world, get away from the vexation and 
depression of defeat, and, *'far from the madding 
crowd's ignoble strife," seek comfort and repose. 

For the great gifts which our mother has bestowed 
on us, how^ much we owe her ! 

We are her apostles sent out to show the world 
what her training can accomplish. We should strive to 
quit ourselves like men ; by doing our duty faithfully 
in whatever sphere of life it may have pleased God to 



82 SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF THE 

call US unto ; by furnishing an example to others in 
our life and conduct of the good the University has 
accomplished for us ; by inciting the young in the 
various communities in v^rhich we live to seek the same 
fountains where we have drunk to such good purpose, 
and to induce their parents to give their daughters and 
sons the advantages of a college training which may 
have been denied to themselves. 

But this is not all. We should ourselves keep the 
University spirit alive by frequent returns to the home 
of our mother. The young graduate will draw from 
the reunion of sisters and brothers new inspiration ; 
the middle-aged will be kept in the beaten track of 
honor and loyalty and devotion, while the old, in 
breathing the pure atmosphere which surrounds the 
institution, will renew their youth with a principle 
more enduring than the elixir of the wisest of modern 
physicians. 

Wherever graduates live in sufficient numbers, 
organizations should be formed to keep alive the flame 
of college life and kindle enthusiasm in the youth of 
the communities where their organizations may chance 
to be located. Heretofore, the alumni have been too 
small in numbers to accomplish great results, although 
they have done much. But now is the accepted time 
in the University's history; now is the day when its 
salvation and permanent prosperity may be secured. 

And the alumni are in condition to do much. In 
almost every county of importance in this State are one 
or more graduates. Let them see to it that the Senators 
and Representatives in the Legislature of the State are 
committed to the cause of higher education. 



UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 83 

Let every alumnus make it a point to be at the 
Capital when the bill for an endowment of the Uni- 
versity comes up for consideration. 

We have an able ally in the Chief Executive of the 
State. A united effort all along the line cannot fail. 
Public sentiment is with us. A. closer connection 
between the University and the high schools of the 
State, so successfully inaugurated by the Faculty, has 
awakened a great feeling in the University' s favor. 

The year just past with its harmonious workings 
and good results makes the present a most auspicious 
opportunity to respectfully but firmly demand of the 
Legislature recognition of the rights of the institution. 

We point with pride to her past. God knows I 
glory not alone in being the son of my foster mother 
but in having in my veins the blood of a father the best 
years of whose life were spent in laying broad and 
deep the foundations of our University. The dead in 
truth rest from their labors and we have entered into 
the fruits thereof. We can best honor their memories 
and pay tribute to their worth by making the institu- 
tion they founded and successfully carried through the 
first half century of existence to increase in usefulness, 
to grow in strength, and to flourish like the bay tree. 

But there is another way in which the alumni can 
help pay the debt they owe their Alma Mater ^ and that 
is by creating an alumni fund for the general uses of 
the University. Of course, this would be small in the 
outset but annual contributions from each alumnus, 
even though of limited amounts, would accomplish 
much good in helping support professors or tutors or 
purchasing new appliances in the various departments. 



84 SE:\ri-CENTEXNIAL OF THE 

And then what grander monument could an alum- 
nus leave than an endowment of a professorship 
in the University I More enduring than marble or 
granite, more gratifying to one's self, in the conscious- 
ness of having done a noble act, than in leaving a 
fortune to be wasted, perchance, by undeserving chil- 
dren. Then there is another avenue for a good work 
open to the alumni of the University. You all know 
that the public servants of the British Government, 
who have done their work for years faithfully and well, 
are cared for in old age from the public purse. You 
also know that not alone the soldier and sailor of our 
country, who have sacrificed health or limb in the 
country's service, receive an annual contribution from 
her bounty, but to the just judge who has passed upon 
the rights of men until his eye has grown dim or his 
step infirm the nation says, "You and yours shall be 
secure from want as long as you may live." So I think 
that, until the State takes appropriate action, the 
alumni should see to it, by the creation of a suitable 
fund, that no professor or instructor, who has taught 
year in and year out for a salary barely sufficient for 
comfortable support, should in his declining years be 
allowed to suffer for the necessities and comforts of life. 
How blessed such a gift would be, both to the giver 
and to the recipient I There may be some who have 
rendered good service for years within our college halls 
who possibly need such help right now. Let the fund 
be opened to-day and let it grow with a rapidity 
which will show that the hearts of our graduates are 
not slow to respond to the calls of those whose lives 
have been devoted to the upbuilding of the institution. 



UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 85 

And our Alma Mater ! We must love her and be 
devoted to her and work for her interests ; but she also 
owes some duties to us. She must see to it through 
her proper officers that her funds are well administered ; 
that her professors are men not only well educated, but 
who keep abreast of the times and maintain an active, 
enthusiastic intei'est in their work ; that her students 
are zealous and well-behaved ; and that her graduates, if 
not as distinguished in numbers as some of the other 
institutions of the country, will yet measure well up in 
the balances of technical learning and culture. 

I believe in a close connection between the alumni 
and the University by representation in the Faculty. 
But let not the. mere fact of one's being an alumnus 
be considered the only passport requisite to securing a 
vacant professorship. Post-graduate courses in our 
own University as well as in the largest and best institu- 
tions of Europe and America are open to every ambitious 
graduate, and when he makes his application let him 
come as well equipped as his fellow applicant, and then 
the fact of his being an alumnus should incline the 
scales in his favor. 

In union, 'tis said, there is strength, and it is as 
true in the life of the University as in every other 
department of human activity. If the mother and the 
children go forward together, hand in hand, animated 
by a common purpose, the success of the institution is 
assured, its prosperity certain, its increased and ever 
increasing usefulness attained beyond a peradventure. 

Engaged in the service of elevating and enlarging 
the University, the life of the children will be sweetened 
and prolonged, while the eye of the mother will ever 



86 SEMI-CENTENI^IAL OF THE 

grow brigliter, her vision more extended, *her step more 
elastic, her strength constantly renewed, and the youth 
of the land will Hock to her feet to learn lessons of 
wisdom and instruction, from year to year, in numbers 
ever larger and larger, until the time when all the 
universities of earth shall become colleges in the one 
great University of Heaven, whose head shall be Jehovah! 



UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 87 





The Chairman in introducing Dr. Fisher said : 

Fellow Citizens : 

Hitherto we have been addressed by gentlemen who spoke from 
the outside of this institution. Now we have the privilege of hearing 
words of weight and value from Rev. Dr. M. M. Fisher, for thirteen 
years the esteemed and learned Professor of Latin, and during the last 
college year Chairman of the Faculty, and acting President of the 
University, who will give utterance to a "voice from within," 
Dr. Fisher's life-long connection with colleges, great learning and con- 
ceded ability will command respectful attention, and his words will 
be full of cheer. 



One mark of the last half century has been the love 
of money, and this is in a peculiar sense the land of the 
dollar. Right in the midst of this money-loving, push- 
ing and restless age this University was born. Much is 



88 SE31I-CENTENNIAL OF THE 

said about the survival of the fittest. What has this 
University accomplished to entitle her to a place among 
American schools ? What has she done to merit exist- 
ence at all? 

HAS THE UNIVEKSITY PAID ? 

What answer have fifty years to make ? 

This institution was modeled after the University 
of Virginia, and, before telling what we have done, 
let us see what our model has done for Virginia, for 
America, for humanity. From 1825 to 1874, in round 
numbers 60 years, that university had 9,160 students. 
Of these 1,935 became lawyers, 2,090 became doctors, 
265 ministers of the gospel, 80 engineers, 100 editors, 
1,000 teachers, 1,110 became farmers, 167 judges, and 
many of them of great distinction, 348 have been mem- 
bers of the legislature, 30 were generals, 59 became 
authors, 8 attorneys -general, 22 mayors of cities, 5 sec- 
retaries of state at Washington, 11 have been consuls, 
13 governors and lieutenant-governors, 93 members of 
congress, 7 cabinet officers other than secretaries of 
state ; 1,485 of them emigrated to other States, mainly 
to Marj^land and Missouri, and everywhere became 
leading men ; of the present faculty of 19, 12 are 
alumni ; of the 55 fall professorships since 1826, 20 
have been filled by alumni. 

Col. Venable says : " Wipe out the foreign mis- 
"sionaries of the Southern Presbyterian church who 
"are university men, and you almost destroy the enter- 
" prise." Three per cent, from a non-sectarian institu- 
tion and founded by Jefferson have become ministers. 
Look at the kind of men : There are Bishops Key, 
Galleher, Dudley, Doggett and Peterkin ; there are 



UNIVEESITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 89 

Broadus and Dabney, and Sampson, and Briggs, and 
Whitsett, and Crawford H. Toy, a roll of giants ; among 
its 1,000 teachers are Price, and Wilson, and Garnett, 
and McCabe, and Harrison, and Norwood, and McGruire, 
and Blackford, and Abbott, and Fleet, and Allen, and 
Bingham, peers of the strongest and best ; in the list 
of its statesmen are Hunter, and Toombs, and Seddon ; 
among its authors are Edgar A. Poe and Dr. Dabney, 
who in his blindness brings before us the "Blind old 
man of Scio's rocky isle." Emerson says : " An insti- 
tution is the lengthened shadow of one man." AYhat a 
shadow has been cast by Thomas Jefferson ! Yirgil's 
lines spring to memory : 

'" In fre'a dum fliivii current, dnm montibos umbrae 
Lustrabunt, convexa polus dum sidera pascet, 
Semper honos nomenque tuum laudesque manebnnt." 

1^0 wonder in battling for such a university Cabell 
should wTite to Jefferson in these words : "I returned 
"hastily over stormy rivers and frozen roads to rejoin 
"the band of steadfast patriots engaged in the holy 
"cause of the university." Sophocles once asked in a 
line that comes ringing down the ages: "Is she not 
worthy of gaining golden honors ? ' ' The whole country 
answers, "yes." But stop a moment. In 50 years that 
university through its faculty sent forth to the world 
250 works, embracing Latin, Greek, philosophy, law, 
chemistry, geology, agriculture, etc., in fact on every 
subject taught in our best colleges and universities. 
Who does not know McGuffey's Readers and Yenable's 
Mathematics ? 

No State has better understood how to raise up a 
race of great men among her sons than Virginia. That 



90 SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF THE 

State has given to her university a grand total of 
$1,944,304, has given free tuition to 1,081 students and 
has boarded a large number free of charge. But there 
has been brought into and retained in the State by 
means of the university, $14, 476, 8; )0. The actual money 
gain to the State has been $12,532,496. Has that uni- 
versity paid ? 

JS^ow let us look at home. What have we done ? 
What is our record \ Here it is. Within these halls 
in 50 years have been 9,000 students — over one-half of 
these have been here in the last 15 years. Of these, 
500 have taken the regular college course. Of the 500, 
75 became teachers, 12 ministers, 20 bankers, 12 editors, 
20 merchants, 134 lawyers, 50 farmers, and 30 became 
doctors, while the remaining 147 followed other voca- 
tions. Besides these we have had 1,550 professional 
graduates, as follows : 366 lawyers, 305 normal grad- 
uates, 72 in agriculture and horticulture, 585 in medi- 
cine, 80 in civil engineering, 21 topographical engineers, 
'$>^ purveyors, 25 mining engineers. Whole number of 
graduates, 2,050. Two- thirds, or 6,000 students, have 
come from the farm. In 1881, by careful investigation, 
it was found that of the students then in our classes 35 
per cent, earned their own money and were self-sup- 
porting, 20 per cent, were the children of parents in 
very moderate circumstances, and the remaining 45 per 
cent, were from families of greater linancial ability. 
Adopting this as a standard, we reach this result : Of 
the 9,000 who have been here, 3, 150 have been dependent 
on their own exertions, 1,800 have come from the fam- 
ilies of the poor, while the rest, 4,050, have had more 
means. Four thousand nine hundred and fifty, largely 



UI^IVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 91 

over one-half, have come from the ranks of the poor. 
This has not been the rich man's school, nor yet the 
poor man's school, but it has been Missouri's school, a 
school for all. 

Here for fifty years Greek has met Greek, the rich 
and poor have mingled together in the arena of mind, 
and some of the brightest shields have been worn by the 
sons and daughters of Missouri' s poor. 

Look again ; we have sent out 500 professional 
teachers, and some are among the best in America ; there 
are Rogers, and White, and Haynes, and Lamkin, and 
Phillips, and Ridgway, and Johnston, and Lowry, and 
Lynch, and a long list who are the peers of any. 

But besides these we have sent out another 500 who 
never did graduate but who have acquired the right to 
be called good teachers. They toil in the common 
school, high school, in all grades of schools, and have 
won their laurels and deserve them. 

We have reached thus the farm-house, the hamlet, 
the town, the city, the whole Commonwealth and have 
done our part to cement our people into one common 
brotherhood. The Alpine shepherd winds his horn on 
the Alps, and the notes fly from peak to peak, are 
echoed from height to height, pierce the caverns, and 
float in mellow cadences over distant valleys. So the 
influence of the State University has permeated every 
part of the Commonwealth and has yielded a rich har- 
vest. The University of Virginia boasts, and justly, too, 
of her statesmen, generals, legislators, her men of might 
in all vocations. We, too, have our congressmen, legis- 
lators, judges, lawyers, business men, doctors, editors, 
merchants, ministers, generals, men who are in the 



92 SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF THE 

front rank of their callings both at home and abroad. 
A proud record could be read here, did time permit. A 
volume could be filled by the achievements of those 
trained in these halls. 

Two hundred and seventy-three citizens of the State 
have served as curators, many of them the most gifted, 
honored, excellent and able men of their day. Two 
hundred men have belonged to the faculty. They taught 
here 1,036 years and brought to their chairs the aggregate 
experience of 3,000 years. Its Presidents, Lathrop, 
Shannon, Hudson, Minor, Read, Laws, have been 
among the giants and their voices will never cease to 
echo along these corridors. Twenty-four of the 200 
are gone in body but are present in influence. What a 
roll-call of our dead ! Lathrop, Hudson, Shannon, 
Shields, Matthews, Price, Read, Bingham, Krekel, 
Ficklin, Bliss, Arnold, Hanna, McDowell, Stevens, 
Hodgen and Mary B. Read. 

" Dead, but sceptered sovereigns, who still rule 
Our spirits from their urns.^^ 

This temple of knowledge has not been finished with 
untempered mortar, neither has unbeaten oil fed the 
lamps in the holy place. As to the living members of 
the faculty I need not speak, they need no encomiums. 
Some are gone : Swallow, Minor, Norwood, Root, Rip- 
ley, Hosmer, Twining, Duncan, Laws, Tracy, Mc Anally, 
Sanborn, Thomas, and many others, noble men and true. 
Sixty members of the faculty are authors, and some of 
them have won not only a national, but an international, 
reputation. Thirteen men of the present faculty have 
won distinction by their writings. Some are inventors 
whose names are destined to immortality. 



UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 93 

In 1845, Dr. Anthony W. Rollins gave $10,000 for 
the benefit of students of Boone County, unable to edu- 
cate themselves. That fund now amounts to $40,000 ; 
sum available annually about $2,000 ; sum disbursed in 
25 years $37,500 ; the number who have received assist- 
ance is about 825. Here is a monument to Dr. Anthony 
W. Rollins more lasting than brass, and every year will 
embalm his memory afresh. 

It is fitting that the most untiring and eloquent 
friend of the University should be the son of its early 
benefactor. James S. Rollins never taught in the class 
room, yet his brilliant oratory reached every part of 
Missouri. Almost every movement for the University's 
good for 50 years felt the touch of his masterly hand. 
When old age was upon him his zeal was as ardent 
and his efforts as great as ever. He gave his life to the 
University. One of the last acts of his life was to 
establish six scholarships open to all students — an 
incentive to lofty acquirements to the latest day. He 
is gone ; voices from within will ever herald his deeds. 
The mantle of his friendship rests on the shoulders of 
his sons. 

Here we have father and son united in heart and 
deed in a noble work, going hand in hand down the 
centuries and gladdening the hearts of generations 
yet to be. 

Since 1868, 1,500 young men have boarded in the 
Club Houses furnished by the State. ^ Many of the 



* The following are the charter members of the First V/niversitj 
Boarding Club, organized in the fall of 1868 : Clark Craycroft, law- 
yer, Joplin, Mo. ; S. C. Rogers, lawyer, Clinton County, Mo. ; James 
Dryden, lawyer, Carthage, Mo. ; Randall Dryden, lawyer, Pittsburg, 



94 SEMI-CEXTEXXIAL OF THE 

most gifted minds have been found in their ranks. 
They may well be proud of their record. Their average 
expense per week has not exceeded 81.75, thus saving 
for each student 8100 a year. Amount saved in 22 
years, 8150,000. The State in providing these Club 
Houses has enabled worthy men of limited means to 
accomplish with 8150,000 what otherwise would have 
required 8300,000; has diminished expenses one-half, or 
in other words has enabled young men to do what 
would simply have been impossible otherwise. Our 
new Club House cost 820,000. It Avas full all last year 
and helped to economize to the extent of 89,000. Who 
will say that the State's money was not wisely spent ? 
Another fact : Under an unwritten law the Board in the 
last 25 years has given free tuition to over 600 needy 
students. Here again a generous hand has been open 
to a large number, dispensino; among the worthy over 
812,000. These voices from within have never been 
heard before ; but, being heard, they cannot but bind 
the hearts of our people to their University. 

First, Here then is a voice from the 9,000 students, 
the 273 curators, the 200 instructors, who have labored 
here. A voice from the living, a voice from the dead, a 
voice from the printed page, all "Voices from Within." 
In the palaces of the C?esars in Rome we find stamped 
bricks bearing the names of Augustus, Tiberius, Calig- 
ula, Xero, Diocletian and others, telling the age of the 



Kansas ; Joseph Anderson, lawyer, Keokuk, Iowa ; James Coone\- 
lawyer, Marshall, Mo. : James R. Huffaker, physician, Brookfield, Mo. ; 
Benjamin Craycroft, physician, Chillicothe, Mo. ; Monroe Johnson ; 
J. T. Ridgway, principal, Kansas City, Mo. To the last gentleman 
we are indebted for the Hst of those engaged in a movement that has 
jnet with marked success. 



UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 95 

brick and building. It has been said that if the Uni- 
versity of Virginia were torn down the name of Jefferson 
would be found on every brick. So here ; if this temple 
of learning were torn down, the names of Rollins and 
Lathrop and Shannon, Hudson and Read and S. S. Laws 
would be found on every brick. 

This is our semi-centennial day, and many a star 
glitters in our crown of rejoicing, but how many of 
these stars were set there by Dr. Laws, still living and 
strong and vigorous, as in other days, but absent. But 
for him the rejoicing of this day would be impossible. 
We have no time now to speak of his devotion, his 
trials, his successes. The State knows them by heart. 
The eagle is now abroad in her flight from whose pinion 
is to come the quill that will chronicle the deeds of our 
presidents, living as well as dead, and imbed them in 
the corner stone here, and in the hearts of Missouri's 
coming millions for all time. 

We have spoken mainly of the dead, but less could 
not be said of what the illustrious man still living has 
done for the State of his adoption. 

Another face is missed to-day, whose smiles have 
come like a benediction at these annual gatherings at 
Missouri's educational Mecca. I refer to Mrs. Lathrop, 
wife of the first president, and may I not commission 
her honored son to bear to his mother the gratitude, 
veneration and tender memories that spring unbidden 
in our hearts on this joyous day ? In a casket we inclose 
a like tribute to another, who for thirteen years honored 
this community and University family with the gentlest 
and noblest graces that exalt the Christian woman. I 
mean Mrs. Laws. 



\)b SE:^II- CENTENNIAL OF THE 

Second. Such advantages as are found here for 
economy cannot be paralleled in America. Tuition is 
nominal. Average expense of last year 8200. The State 
spends S6 Avhere the student spends one in his educa- 
tion. Average age of students for 15 years past over 20. 
This voice of economy must be heard and will be heard. 

Third. *We have learned what kind of material 
Missouri has in her youth. \Ye are 3,000,000 strong ; 
one-fifth or more than 600,000, not lighting men, but 
bright, ambitious and often gifted sons and daughters. 
The talent they display, the scholarship they get 
justify all the outlay and a thousandfold more. A few 
years ago a boy came here on foot from the Arkansas 
line carry his worldly all in a knapsack on his back ; he 
stayed four years and went away carrying a gold medal. 
His name was Stubblefield. Other States have shared 
our efforts, for we have drawn from 20 States. And why 
not \ We are growing. Our first graduating class was 
2, par noMle fratrum^ our last class 169. Both members 
of the first class still live, both have kept up their 
scholarship ; both stand high in their vocations, one a 
supreme judge of Louisiana, and the other an honored 
citizen of Missouri, and the presiding officer on this 
occasion. 

Our ideas too are growing. 

We have had nearly 500 girls, and in health, endur- 
ance, intellectual ability, scholarship and success they 
have been a match for Missouri's sons and often more 
than a match, and that too on the fields of oratory. 
We were pioneers in co-education. Our girls have held 
their place so modestly, so becomingly, so triumphantly 
that there has never been the shadow of a reason for 



UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 97 

regretting the step taken in their admission. All 
America has since done the same. 

All of these facts go to prove that this University 
h'as not been cut off from the throbbing life of the peo- 
ple for whom and by whom it was founded. 

We are at peace within. As to politics and sec- 
tarianism we are as far above the hustings and the 
wrangle as the fabled gods on the summit of the ancient 
Olympus. I have never seen it otherwise. 

Last year was one of harmony, hard work, self- 
denial and success. In an exjjerience of 30 years I have 
never known a more devoted, earnest, enthusiastic 
faculty. This is said not for my sake, but for t,he sake 
of faithful colleagues who deserve and have received 
the thanks of the Board of Curators. 

FACULTIES MAKE UNIVERSITIES. 

When Xenophon was leading his 10,000 Greeks in 
his immortal retreat, one day as the head of the column 
ascended a hill the soldiers began to shout, ''Thalassa!''^ 
the sea, the sea. As the tired ranks came up they all 
joined in the glad cry — ''TJtalassa! thalassa f^ That 
meant for them Greece, home, safety. Our advance 
column is climbing the hill. No better board has ever 
led us — true, conscientious, enlightened, determined ; 
we have a governor manly, fearless, far-seeing, active, 
friendly, and- when he is called to read the handwriting 
on the walls of the capitol next winter he will translate 
thus : Bill giving |2, 000, 000 endowment to the Uni- 
versity passed unanimously. 



See sketch of University of Virginia by Dr. Adams of Johns 
Hopkins University. The statistics touching the University of Mis- 
souri are not strictly exact in some instances, but the most reliable 
accessible under the circumstances. 



98 SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF THE 



iiiiiiiMiiiiiiiaiiiiiiliiL :;| 

The Chairman in introducing Col. Switzler said : 
Felloiv Citizens: 

It would be to " paint the lily " to add aught beyond the mention 
of his name in introducing Col. William F. Switzler, for nearly half a 
century the unswerving, tireless friend of the University, repeatedly a 
member of its Board of Curators, legislator, member of Constitutional 
Conventions, journalist, and of national fame as Chief 'of the Bureau of 
Statistics, who will discuss "The Early Trials and Triumphs of the Uni- 
versity " 

Mr. President^ Ladies and Fellow Citizens : 

The Committee having in charge the exercises of 
this occasion request me to submit a short paper on the 
early trials and triumphs of the State University. With 



UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 99 

some reluctance I consent to undertake the responsible 
duty ; and the first thing that confronts me is the fact 
that the entire field has been occupied by skilful gleaners 
leaving me the difficult task of discovering, as best I 
may, scattered here and there over its surface, a few 
well -developed heads of grain worthy of the garner. 

All the institutions and industries established by 
man are in some respects amenable to the same law of 
development which influences and controls his individ- 
ual movements. 

There is no development of elevated human char- 
acter without trials, sacrifices and disappointments. 
Trials precede triumphs, and seem through all human 
history essential to them, and as compensations for 
them. They are disciplinary and educational agents 
without which no great advance can be made in the 
development of the forces which constitute the warp 
and woof of human character. "JN'o cross, no crown," 
is written on the face of all history ; and it is therefore 
safe to affirm that no man has ever achieved distin- 
guished success and great usefulness whose earlier life 
was not beset by serious privations and trials. 

It will appear, in reviewing, the lives of the great 
and good of our own age and country, and of other 
times and other lands, that trials perform the same 
office in the development of the higher attributes and 
the more attractive graces of character that the plough 
and harrow and rake perform in bringing forth seed time 
and harvest for the husbandman. These illustrations, 
by a license of speech, embody the law of true develop- 
ment, both in respect to ourselves and to the institutions 
which we may establish. 



100 SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF THE 

Judged by this law, and reviewing the remarkable 
history of the early trials of the University of Missouri, 
we do not know at which most to marvel, the fact that 
the institution was able to stem the tide of financial 
embarrassment, popular ignorance, official indifference 
and open opposition daring the incipient stages of its 
existence, or that in spite of all opposing forces it pre- 
sents itself to-day, at its first Semi-Centennial Anniver- 
sary, "a thing of beauty and a joy forever." To recall 
the words of Shakespeare : — 

" Can such things be 

And overcome us like a summer cloud, 

Without our special wonder ?"' 

It may be claimed that much of its success is due 
not only to its early trials, but to the remarkable sacri- 
fices of time and money made by its true friends to 
maintain it ; for it ought to be proclaimed on this day 
with the voice of a trumpet, and in words never to be 
forgotten, that from the gray dawn of the morning of 
July 4, 1843, when the edifice was dedicated, and the 
glittering spire of the new dome of the University first 
kissed the light of day, its true friends were animated 
by an unwavering faith, amounting almost to inspira- 
tion, that the institution would finally triumph over all 
opposition ; that the bright banner of success would 
gaily glitter in the sunlight and float in triumph amid 
the plaudits of an admiring i3eople as it does to-day. 

Some of the history to which it is proper reference 
should be made on this occasion will be to many an 
oft-told tale. 

Nothing connected with the University is more 
familiar to intelligent jjeople than its origin ; its legis- 



UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 101 

lative inception ; the point of time and the provision of 
law from which it was evolved, and yet, in order that 
we may preserve approiDriate historical continuity, 
those who honor me with attention to this paper, or 
who hereafter may read it, should be reminded that, 
according to the sixth section of the act of Congress of 
March 6, 1820, which was passed to enable the people 
of the Territory of Missouri to form a constitution and 
government, with a view to admission to the responsi- 
bilities of statehood in the American Republic, Con- 
gress granted the State 72 sections, or two entire town- 
ships, of public land (46,080 acres), for the use of a 
seminary of learning, to be appropriated solely for the 
use of said seminary by the Legislature thereof. These 
lands were among the most fertile and eligibly located 
in the State, and, therefore, the most valuable ; and, 
had their sale been successfully administered, would 
have furnished the University a large endowment. Of 
course the lands were valueless to the institution unless 
sold and the proceeds appropriated for its maintenance 
according to the terms and conditions of the grant. 

On December Bl, 1830, the Legislature of Missouri 
passed an act authorizing the sale, at public auction, to 
the highest bidder, of the seminary or university lands, 
upon the condition, however, that they should not be 
sold for less than two dollars per acre. 

It was provided by law that no part of the proceeds 
of the sales of the lands should be appropriated, princi- 
pal or interest, for the benefit of the University until 
\the sum reached $100,000, and was invested in the stock 
>f the State Bank of Missouri. In 1842 the investment 
cached the $100,000 limit, and annually thereafter the 



102 SE^ri-CEXTEXXIAL OF THE 

earnings of this fund, consisting of interest on the bank 
stock, were aioplied to the support of the CJniversity. 

For the first twenty years of the existence of the 
institution, that is from 1842, when the first bank divi- 
dend of $1,662 was paid to the treasurer of the institu- 
tion, to the 811,000 paid in January, 1863, the aggregate 
dividends amounted to 8216,962, or an average of only 
§10,843 per year to support and maintain a great Uni- 
versity in one of the great States west of the Mississippi. "^ 

This recital shows that among the early trials of 
the institution was not only the comj^aratively small 
sum for which the lauds sold, but also the small divi- 
dends realized annually on the investment in bank 
stock. 

To these two serious trials may be added a third, 
namely, the remarkable, unexx^lained and wholly 
unjustifiable disregard by the Legislature of Missouri 
for more than twenty-five years of the constitutional 
obligation to respect the plighted faith of the State, 
given to Congress in the acceptance of the land grant, 
and by a provision in the organic law of 1820 to main- 
tain the Tniversity. 

The failure of the State Bank to declare the expected 
and much needed dividends, supplemented and intensi- 
fied by the inexcusable and continued neglect of the 
Legislature for more than a quarter of a century to 
appropriate a single dollar for the support of Missouri's 
only institution of learning, of necessity remitted to 
the board of management, and to its struggling and 
starved faculty of instruction, the duty of maintaining 



*Report of the State Auditor, John Walker, 1885-6, pp. 274-277. 



UjS'iversity of the state of :\nssouRi. 103 

it, not only without adequate funds but without favor- 
able legislative recognition or proper sympathy. 

It will go into the history of the Commonwealth, 
and into the history of its only University — indeed, the 
discreditable record has already been made in inefface- 
able characters, that for the first quarter of a century 
of the life of this institution, legislature after legisla- 
ture convened at the Capital, took the oath of office to 
support a constitution which imposed the obligation for- 
ever to encourage schools and the means of education ; 
that legislature after legislature met and annually made 
appropriations to support the penitentiary and the 
various eleemosynary institutions of the State and 
adjourned without taking into the palm of its hand and 
offering to the University even the pittance necessary 
to pay for its postage stamps. And this extraordinary 
indifference was manifested towards this institution 
notwithstanding the fact — a fact which for all of these 
years blazed forth in letters of livid light across our 
whole heaven, — that the people of Boone County, in less 
than twenty years after the admission of the State into 
\ the Union, voluntarily contributed, out of their own 
\ scanty fortunes, nearly $120,000 to erect for the youth 
^of the State, and for the generations that are to follow, 
Ms University building, the cost whereof, even to the 
Mount of a single dollar was not borne by the taxpay- 
e\s of the Commonwealth. But 

'^ There is some soul of goodness in evil 
Would men observingly distil it out.^' 
It is not only a remarkable, but a pleasant incident 
in th^ history of the University of Missouri— Missouri, 



104 SEMI-CEIN'TEIS'IS'IAL OF THE 

a part of the Louisiana Parchase acquired by Mr. 
Jefferson — that the distinguished honor belongs to her 
of laying, July 4, 1840, the corner stone of the first 
State University west of the Mississippi River, and 
that before the lapse of a half century the tomb-stone 
carved from the native granite of the Old Dominion, 
and erected over the remains of Jefferson at Monticello, 
was brought to this Campus and planted within fifty 
paces of the very spot on which the corner stone was 
laid. 

These were among the early trials of this institu- 
tion. But they were not all of its trials. Others of a 
serious and embarrassing character followed in the train 
of those noted. It was often without means with which 
to pay even the small salaries of the president of the 
institution, or the members of the faculty, or the cur- 
rent and unavoidable expenditures of the most econom- 
ical administration. 

And these early trials were also seen in the small 
library, which in the number of its books was not 
equal to that of some of the private gentlemen of for- 
tune who then lived in the State, while its chemical and 
philosophical apparatus, and other aids to education, 
were far below the wants of the institution. When 
compared with what in these respects it can now boast 
the inquiry is suggested how was it possible tha^> 
Lathrop, and Shannon, and Hudson, who were the 
early Presidents of the University, and the friends of tie 
institution, headed by James S. Rollins, kept it afloat 
in the surging sea of popular indifference and legisla- 
tive disloyalty ? 



UNIVEKSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 105 

That the institution did ride the storm more or less 
successfully, and indeed more or less gloriously, will be 
regarded as among the triumphs of its early manhood. 

The prescribed limits of this paper forbid any 
elaborate notice of the sacrifices which were made by 
its friends during its earlier history. There is one fact, 
however, of marked significance, because it denotes the 
spirit of the time and of the actor, and which amid the 
rapidly occurring events of the age in which we live 
has been almost if not entirely forgotten, namely, that 
the first President of the University, John H. Lathrop, 
the thoroughly furnished scholar. Christian gentleman, 
and personally perhaps the most popular of all our 
presidents, realizing the serious financial trials through 
which the institution was passing, and that there was 
not money in the University treasury with which to pay 
the salaries of his co-laborers in the faculty of arts, 
and knowing that the University warrants were offered 
on our streets at a large discount, voluntarily proposed 
to the Curators that they reduce his salary, then only 
about $2,500 annually, to $1,250 — an example of self- 
sacrifice and devotion to the institution unparalleled, 
so far as I know, in the history of the universities of 
America. 

And this is one of its early trials and triumphs. 

But among its greatest triumphs, achieved in the 
midst of discouragements and difficulties without num- 
ber, may be noted its early graduates, academic and pro- 
fessional, from the ranks of whom, without enumerating 
all of them by name, have come some of the most dis- 
tinguished ministers, lawyers, physicians, teachers, pol- 
iticians, bankers and business men of our State. 



106 SE3II-CEXTEX^rrAL OF THE 

We learn from the sacred writings that the Lord 
commanded Moses to make the breastplate of judgment 
with cunning work, that the names of the children of 
Israel be inscribed thereon, and that Aaron wear it upon 
his heart for a memorial.^ In like manner, the Univer- 
sity of Missouri, recalling the common trials and perils 
and discouragements through which it passed with its 
early graduates, will wear their names upon its heart as 
a memorial of the triumph it achieved in granting its 
highest honors to those who have so courageously won 
and so worthily wear them. 

On the occasion of laying the corner stone, Hon. 
James L. Minor, then Secretary of State during the 
gubernatorial term of Lilburn AY. Boggs, delivered an 
address, the only copy of which perhaps extant is in the 
volume I hold in my hand. It has lost none of its 
interest by the lapse of fifty years ; for it is an able, 
concise and approiDriate production — historical, didactic 
and prophetic. It occupies only seven pages of a 
pamphlet of ordinary size, and if there were time I 
know of no paper which would prove more interesting, 
if read in full, to this audience. 

The first portions of the address are devoted to a 
discussion of the importance of the universal diffusion 
of education among a xoeople who aspire to the highest 
citizenship, and upon whom rests the responsibility of 
maintaining inviolate "the spirit of the federative 
*' structure of our compact, and the rights of the par- 
" ties who compose it." 



*Exodus, Chapter 18. 



UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 107 

Great prominence was given, and very justly, to 
the importance and value of instruction in the elements 
of political economy and the principles of constitutional 
law. Familiarity with these principles among a people 
who are to solve the experiment of self-government he 
regarded as the sheet-anchor of our hopes and a guar- 
antee of the permanence of our institutions. 

Placing in the foreground general instruction in the 
usual academic courses, as of the first importance to 
American youth, he proceeded likewise in the spirit of 
prophecy to indicate that the professional chairs of 
medicine and law and pedagogics would, in due time, 
be established in the University. Referring to the 
inexhaustible agricultural and mineral wealth of the 
State, and to the possibilities which beckon our people 
to the race for the acquisition of wealth, and emphasiz- 
ing the obligation imposed upon the Legislature by the 
State constitution, which declares that "schools and 
the means of education shall be forever encouraged," 
he closes his address by asking : — 

" Shall our State shrink from entering into this 
" noble contest between virtue, intelligence and liberty 
"on the one side, and depravity, ignorance and misrule 
"on the other? Shall it be frightened by the paltry 
' ' expense which the infancy of its institution may cost ? 
" and shall it ever be reduced to the miserable and falla- 
"cious policy of supposing itself happy and prosperous 
"when its coffers are filled with gold and silver, and 
* ' its people perhaps ignorant and depraved \ And shall 
' ' the mistaken hand of frugality close its eyes against 
" the evident means of advancing its people' s prosperity, 
' ' and cause it to disregard the very principle on which 



108 SEMI-CENTEIs^NIAL OF THE 

'it was founded, the promotion of its people's hap pi- 
' ness. No, I trust, never. I fondly anticipate that 
' the minds of our lawgivers will be directed to the 
' fullest extent by the spirit of the age ; that their 
' action will be so regulated as to sustain the principle, 
' now sanctioned by universal experience, that the most 
' intelligent people are the happiest and freest, and 
' that civil liberty and intellectual light are one and 
' the same thing. With the resources which it pos- 
' sesses, and with this principle fully encouraged, the 
' mind is delightfully bewildered in the contemplation 
' of the greatness to which our State is destined. 
' Peace and happiness, morality and virtue, liberty and 
' plenty, will start up as the combined and beautiful 
' result, and they who have encouraged this union, who 
• have blended their efforts for the advancement of this 
' cause, who have urged its promotion, by their untir- 
' ing zeal, as the best interest of our land, will have 
' achieved for themselves a renown which faction can- 
' not blight, and envy cannot wither — a renown that 
' will ever freshen as education is extended and liberty 
' advanced, — a renown that is the more desirable 
' because it is bloodless and unaccompanied by human 
' misery. Such will be regarded as the true philan- 
' thropists and patriots of our country. Their services 
' will be the universal happiness of their countrymen, 
' and their reward 

^* To read their history in a nation^s eyes/^ 



UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. 109 




JUDGE JOHN HINTON, 

President of the Board of Curators. 



A SKETCH. 

JoHn Hinton was born July 1, 1818, at Folly Castle in Petersburg, 
Va. He was the third son of Captain John and Martha N. (Gill) 
Hinton, only daughter of Major Erasmus Gill, of the Va. Cavalry 
of the Revolution, and Sarah N. Gill, all natives of Va. The 
Hintons are one of the oldest families of the Old Dominion, being 
traced back to 1620, and on both sides we find the purest patriotic blood. 
Nobility of character and a brave and generous spirit were a portion of 
Judge Hinton's heritage. 

Judge Hinton was educated at Jonathan Smith's Academy in 
Petersburg, in the various branches of an English education, till his 
fifteenth year. Then, desiring a practical business training, he entered 



110 SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF THE 

a large pounting house in Petersburg. In 1838 he came to St. Louis, 
Mo., and engaged in land speculations till 1841, then, to Boone County, 
Mo., where he followed the tobacco business and steam-boating till 
1846. 

He went into the Mexican War as a private in the 1st regiment 
Mo. mounted volunteers, Doniphan's famous regiment ; in it was 
appointed sergeant major, and in December, 1846, was elected 1st 
lieutenant in Co. G. ; was soon detached and served in the same 
capacity in Reid's Cavalry until the close of his time of service, always 
with bravery and distinction. In 1847, Gov. King appointed him 
aide with the rank of Colonel. Then engaging in general business at 
Rocheport, he also served for nearly two terms as a director of the 
Fayette branch of the State Bank of Mo. From 1857 to '68, he had a 
varied experience as a business man in Rocheport, St. Louis, Omaha, 
and as first clerk on various steamers which plied the Mo. and Miss. 
Rivers from New Orleans to Fort Benton. 

He served most acceptably as a Curator of the State University 
from 1875 to '78 ; and for several years thereafter was lecturer on 
probate law and practice in the University. 

While in St. Louis in 1840-1, Judge Hinton read law in the office 
of Hon. Montgomery Blair, and for 80 years thereafter he was 
accustomed to occasionally dip into Coke and Blackstone, not omitting 
the Statutes of Mo., with which last works be became quite familiar. 
In 1872, he was elected probate judge of Boone County on the Demo- 
cratic ticket, and has since been successively re-elected to the same 
office without opposition. His great excellence and distinguishing 
characteristic is the sharpness and clearness of his perception and 
judgment, thus rendering him accurate and correct as a business man, 
acute, logical, and even profound as a judge. Occasionally Judge 
Hinton's rulings have been reversed by the Circuit Court, but in every 
such case, when appealed, the Supreme Court has invariably reversed 
the Circuit Court and sustained Judge Hinton's decisions. 

Judge Hinton is a bold, natural, ardent, effective speaker, and a 
man of solemn convictions. "The force and earnestness of solemn 
convictions are the most irresistible things among men." Given the 
occasion and the subject, Judge Hinton never fails to catch the ear of 
his audience, to carry conviction to the minds of his hearers and to 



UNIVERSITY OF THE STATE OF MISSOURI. Ill 

move them to action — this is true eloquence, the science and art of 
persuasion. Naturalness and earnestness is the soul of true eloquence. 

Judge Hinton was married Aug. 29, 1844, to Eliza Wilcox. Her 
father, Dr. Geo. Boone Wilcox, was a grandson of Squire Boone, who 
was a brother of Daniel Boone. 

Judge Hinton is a Democrat of the strictest constructive school, a 
Christian, a kind, fond husband and father, a warm, true friend, one 
of Boone County's noblemen. 

In sketching the biography of John Hinton, the mind lingeringly 
dwells upon the fair record of his life. Around his name and reputa- 
tion cluster all the manly virtues, truth, candor, magnanimity and 
benevolence. Brave, firm, modest, noble, courteous, generous, patri- 
otic, he is a man whom to know is a privilege, whom to honor is a 
pleasure. 

As President of the present Board of Curators, Judge Hinton has 
proven himself " the right man in the right place." 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



III 

028 308 332 9 



